What is Technical Interview? — UK Software Development Guide

4 min readJune 2025ClickMasters Technical TeamReviewed by James Whitmore, CTO
what is a technical interview

Direct Answer

A technical interview is a job interview format used for software engineering roles that evaluates a candidate's technical skills through: coding challenges (writing code to solve problems), system design questions (designing architectures for large-scale systems), code review exercises (identifying bugs and improvements in existing code), and technical knowledge questions (concepts, tools, patterns).

Technical-interview in the UK

Technical interviewing has specific UK considerations. IR35 implications: contractors assessed in technical interviews are establishing their competence as independent specialists — this supports an outside IR35 position (specialist skills, not subject to day-to-day direction). Equality Act 2010: UK employers must ensure technical interview processes do not discriminate against protected characteristics — algorithmic coding challenges that disadvantage neurodivergent candidates are legally risky. ClickMasters' technical vetting for staff augmentation: 2–3 hour practical assessment (not algorithmic puzzles), code review exercise, and architecture discussion — assessing real-world competence rather than puzzle-solving speed.

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