# Tech vetting criteria The technical interview is the most demanding stage of Lemon.io’s vetting process. It follows profile review, pre-screening, and a recruiter call — and is conducted by a senior engineer from the Lemon.io developer community. It lasts approximately **90 minutes**. The interview is structured around the following areas: * **Small talk & communication check** The interview opens with a casual conversation — this is not a warm-up; it is a scored stage. Developers who cannot hold a natural, professional exchange in English do not advance, regardless of their technical ability. Communication is treated as a core engineering skill, not a secondary requirement. * **Experience deep-dive** The interviewer moves beyond the CV to explore how and why you made specific technical decisions in past projects. Assessed areas include decomposing complex problems into tasks, introducing meaningful improvements, collaborating across teams, and handling legacy codebases. Vague answers or rehearsed responses are flagged. * **Non-Googleable theory** Interviewers ask questions designed to expose gaps in real knowledge — for example, what you would do after committing a production secret to an open-source repository, or how you would optimize a database under high read traffic. Standard theory (data types, framework internals, component differences) is also covered, with practical application tested alongside. * **Practice challenge** You work through one or more real problems: system design, live coding, reviewing the interviewer's code for issues, estimating output from a code snippet, fixing bugs in messy code, or analyzing an algorithm. The focus is on how you think and how you handle difficulty — not on finding a single correct answer. * **Passion & learning habits** The interviewer assesses genuine interest in the craft: the technologies you are currently using, how you keep your skills current, the resources you rely on, and the concrete improvements you introduced in your last project. Generic answers do not pass this stage.

Developer's account on Lemon.io, vetting in grogress.

Developer's account on Lemon.io, vetting in grogress.

**What Lemon.io evaluates in a technical candidate:** * Proven commercial experience in a specific tech stack * Ability to solve real-world problems under time pressure * Depth over breadth — interviewers thoroughly test the core, validated stack; skills listed on a CV but not tested are not shown to clients * Initiative and craft — evidence that the developer has actively improved systems, not just maintained them If the interview feedback is inconclusive, don’t worry — every candidate is given a second chance with a different technical specialist on the same stack. [Apply here](https://lemon.io/for-developers/) & good luck. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.lemon.io/for-developers/tech-vetting-criteria.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.