Programming as a career

I tend not to ask candidates variants of "toughest challenge" or "hardest bug", but if I were to, here's what I would look for:

- Level of technical depth in at least one area engaging with the problem. As you engaged with it, what things did you bring to the table to help break it down? A decent understanding of databases? A clear understanding of how mobile a11y works? considerations around network protocols, latency, errors? Nuances and tradeoffs in web frameworks? Etc

- Field of view: How aware were you of how your work fit into the bigger picture, either with your teammates, your management chain, or other "crossfunctional stakeholders"/non-programmer types? Did you see flexibility in requirements where none was necessarily obvious, bring insight to others or learn insight from others that helped you resolve the challenge?

- What would you have done differently in retrospect, or what did this challenge teach you about how to engage with other challenges in the future?

Not all of everything needs to be present, and a lot somewhere is better than a little everywhere. But that's what I would look for.

One challenge is that the person evaluating you may know absolutely nothing about the domain you were working in. I am fortunate to have a pretty diverse background, but I see this sometimes when I get folks who have very specific experiences that I do not (working on network switches, or non-consumer systems, etc)

Failed to move onto the next round of interviews at a place I *really* wanted to go to, seriously gutted. I might've come off too strong/desperate.