Communicating During Technical Interviews
Communicating During Technical Interviews
Dan Bentivenga
Oct 31, 2025
Most engineers study for interviews the wrong way.
They sit in silence, scroll through LeetCode, and run problems in their head. Then they walk into a real interview, open their mouth, and stumble through an answer they actually knew.
The problem isn’t knowledge, it’s in their delivery.
You can know the perfect solution and still fail the interview if you can’t explain it clearly.
Interviews test communication, not just code
A technical interview is not just about solving a problem. It’s about how you think out loud.
The interviewer cannot see what is in your head. They only hear what comes out of your mouth.
If your answer is disorganized or silent for too long, they assume you are lost. Even if you are not.
That is why the strongest candidates sound like they are walking you through a whiteboard in real time. They explain what they are doing, why they are doing it, and what tradeoffs they considered.
That takes practice, the kind that makes you feel awkward at first.
Think back to math class
Remember when your teacher said, “Show your work”? You could have the right answer, but if you skipped the steps, you lost points.
Interviews are the same. They are less about the final code and more about the reasoning behind it.
Showing your work lets the interviewer see how you break down problems, handle uncertainty, and recover when something doesn’t go as planned. That is what they are really grading.
Why silent prep fails
When you only practice in your head, you skip the hardest part - articulating your thinking.
Speaking forces you to structure your logic. It makes you slow down, connect steps, and clarify why you’re choosing one path over another.
It also exposes weaknesses that reading never will.
The first time you try to explain your approach out loud, you’ll find yourself saying things like, “Wait, I forgot why that works,” or “Actually, that doesn’t make sense.”
That’s good.
Those stumbles are the friction that leads to real progress.
How to practice out loud
- Record yourself answering a question.
- Play it back and listen for filler words, vague phrases, or missing logic.
- Rehearse like a presentation.
- Treat each answer like a short talk. You are walking someone through your thinking, not just reciting steps.
- Talk through tradeoffs.
- Always explain why you chose your approach, not just what you did.
- Simulate the pressure.
- Use a timer. Pretend someone is waiting for your next sentence. The silence matters.
- Summarize cleanly.
- End each answer with a one-line conclusion. “So that’s why I chose a hash map over a list, faster lookups at constant time.”
What strong communication sounds like
If an interviewer asks, “How would you improve a slow SQL query?” — a solid response might sound like this:
“First, I’d look at the execution plan to identify the bottleneck. If I notice full table scans, I’d check for missing indexes. I’d also make sure the WHERE and JOIN clauses align with those indexes. If queries repeat often, I might introduce caching or denormalization. Finally, I’d measure improvements with EXPLAIN ANALYZE to confirm the performance gain.”
That answer shows structure, awareness, and clarity, not just technical depth.
And it only comes from practice out loud.
You’re not memorizing, you’re performing
Interviewing is a live performance. It is not about regurgitating the right answer. It is about composure, tone, and control under pressure.
Musicians practice scales. Athletes run drills. Engineers should rehearse their explanations.
That’s how you walk into the interview calm, structured, and believable.
Because at the end of the day, confidence isn’t built in silence. It’s built in reps, out loud, messy, uncomfortable reps.
TLDR
- You can’t pass a technical interview by thinking quietly.
- Treat it like math class.
- Show your work.
- Explain your reasoning.
- And practice saying your answers out loud until it feels natural.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s fluency under pressure.