Tell me about your work processes

Why is this question so important?

The question “Tell me about the work processes at your previous job” is not just a formality. With its help, the interviewer is trying to understand:

Your teamwork experience: Do you understand that development is a collective effort.
Your systematic approach and discipline: Do you follow the rules, how do you treat code quality.
Your compatibility with the team: Will you fit into the company’s existing processes.
Your proactivity: Did you suggest improvements, how did you influence the processes.

A competent answer can set you apart from other candidates, showing not only technical skills but also professional maturity.

The structure of an ideal answer

To make the answer clear and complete, break it down into logical blocks. You don’t need to tell everything at once — focus on the key aspects.

🔄 Development Methodology

Scrum/Kanban: Specify what you used. “We worked with Scrum in two-week sprints.”
Planning: Talk about sprint planning (poker planning), task estimation (story points).
Daily meetings: “Every day we had daily stand-ups where we synchronized.”
Retrospectives: “At the end of each sprint, we held a retrospective, discussed problems, and looked for ways to improve.”

🌿 Version Control (Git)

Git Flow: Describe the branching model. “We used Git Flow: there was a develop branch for development, master for release, and feature branches for each task.”
Pull/Merge Requests: “Each task was formalized as a Pull Request to develop.”
Code Review: “A PR had to get at least two approvals from other developers.”
Conflicts: “Merge conflicts were resolved by the branch author before submitting the PR for review.”

🚀 CI/CD (Continuous Integration)

Tools: “We had CI/CD set up based on GitLab CI / GitHub Actions.”
Automation: “For every commit in a PR, linters, tests, and the project build were run.”
Deployment: “After merging into develop, the build was automatically deployed to the test environment. Deployment to production was manual, via a button.”
Testing: “CI ran unit tests and E2E tests with Cypress.”

🤝 Team Interaction

With designers: “Designers provided mockups in Figma, which described the UI kit and all component states.”
With backend: “We interacted via a REST API, the contracts for which were described in Swagger/OpenAPI.”
With QA: “Testers received tasks in the test environment and created bug reports in Jira.”
Task tracker: “All tasks were managed in Jira, from the backlog to the release.”

Example of a good answer

“In my previous project, we worked with Scrum in two-week sprints. At the beginning of each sprint, we had a planning session where we estimated tasks in story points. We held 15-minute daily stand-ups for synchronization.

For version control, we used Git Flow. Each task was done in a separate feature branch created from develop. When the task was ready, I created a Pull Request. A mandatory condition for merging was passing CI and getting at least one approval from a colleague. I also actively participated in Code Review, leaving comments and suggesting improvements.

Our CI/CD was built on GitHub Actions. For each PR, linters (ESLint, Prettier), unit tests with Jest, and E2E tests with Playwright were run. After merging to develop, the build was automatically deployed to the dev environment, where QA could check it.

We worked with designers in Figma, where we had a well-developed design system. We interacted with the backend team via a REST API, the specification for which was maintained in Swagger. We tracked all tasks and bugs in Jira.”

What makes this answer strong?

Structure: The answer is logical and consistent.
Keywords: The correct terms are used (Scrum, Git Flow, CI/CD, Code Review).
Active role: The candidate says “I created,” “I participated,” showing their involvement.
Specificity: Specific tools are mentioned (GitHub Actions, Jest, Jira, Figma).

Red flags in an answer

❌ “I don’t know, I just wrote code” (shows a lack of interest in processes). ❌ “It was chaos, everyone did what they wanted” (even if true, it’s better to present it constructively: “The processes were not fully established, and I suggested…”). ❌ “Code review? No, we didn’t have time for that” (a sign of low code quality). ❌ “We always worked directly in the master branch” (a huge red flag for any developer). ❌ Vague phrases without specifics: “Well, we used Agile and Git.”

Conclusion

Your story about work processes is your business card as a team player. Prepare a structured answer in advance, rehearse it, and you will not only successfully pass this stage of the interview but also make the impression of a mature and responsible professional with whom people want to work.

The main rule: be honest, but present the information in a positive and constructive way, emphasizing your role and contribution to these processes.