# The startup interview questions that actually matter (most engineers skip these)

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    ![](https://res.cloudinary.com/dmukukwp6/image/upload/c_scale,w_50/James_H_5cb4c53d9a)

    James Hawkins](/community/profiles/27732.md)

Feb 23, 2026

-   [Guides](/blog/guides.md),
-   [YouTube](/blog/youtube.md)

After 2,431 interviews in 2025, we've noticed something: the best candidates ask completely different questions.

Most engineers interviewing at startups still ask generic questions like "What's the culture like?" or "What will I be working on?" These questions get vague answers and don't help you figure out if the company will actually succeed.

In this video, PostHog co-founder James Hawkins shares the exact questions that separate great candidates from average ones—and the red flags that tell you to run.

## What you'll learn

-   How to evaluate if a startup has product-market fit (without asking directly)
-   The "default alive" question that reveals if a company will survive
-   Questions that show you're a proactive problem-solver, not just looking for direction
-   How to spot if founders view engineering as a cost center
-   Red flags in company culture that most people miss
-   Why asking about founder motivations matters more than you think

[Subscribe to PostHog on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn4mJ4kK5KVSvozJre645LA) for more videos like this.

> PostHog is the leading platform for building self-driving products. With a full suite of developer tools – [AI observability](/ai-observability.md), [product analytics](/product-analytics.md), [session replay](/session-replay.md), [feature flags](/feature-flags.md), [experiments](/experiments.md), [error tracking](/error-tracking.md), [logs](/logs.md), and more – PostHog captures all the context agents need to diagnose problems, uncover opportunities, and ship fixes. A [data warehouse](/data-stack.md) and [CDP](/cdp.md) tie it all together, unifying that context into one source agents can read across. You can steer it all from [Slack](/slack.md), [the web app](/ai.md), the desktop ([PostHog Desktop](/desktop.md)), or your own editor via [the MCP](/mcp.md).

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