I don't claim to have solved the problem of interviews, but I do think I and the candidate get more out of it when we leave it a bit more free-form. I'll cover

I don't claim to have solved the problem of interviews, but I do think I and the candidate get more out of it when we leave it a bit more free-form. I'll cover architecture of our system, API design stuff, debugging, testing, security, problems we're currently having, etc. I'm looking for passion so if the candidate starts riffing on any area, I'll let the conversation flow into that area and go as deep as we can. I usually play dumb as we talk, asking the candidate to explain why and ask what does that mean if they throw an acronym or design pattern into the conversation. A plus of that Socratic method is that if we get into an area that I don't know much about, the candidate doesn't know the difference :)