For me there are two critical questions I ask of a candidate. 1. I tell them the story about a massive screw up in my career (its funny) about how I thought I

For me there are two critical questions I ask of a candidate. 1. I tell them the story about a massive screw up in my career (its funny) about how I thought I was getting fired about being frank about it... etc. I then ask "do you have a story about a major screw up in your career. The answer should say a lot. Dealing with crisis, dealing with mistakes, can you laugh about traumatic things (a great coping mechanism as a programer). I'm looking for insight into you in a professional setting. There have been occasions that this one question takes up the BULK of my allotted time and has on occasion gone over. 2. Can you read and talk about a piece of code GIVEN to you. The bulk of the battle for most devs is READING existing code and trying to figure out where to fit fixes in, or how to integrate what they are doing into a larger, standing system. The provided sample should have errors, room for improvement and plenty of ambiguity where the reader has to make assumptions or ask questions.