How to answer “what do you want to work on”?

Question

I’ve noticed sometimes that companies will ask something like ‘what do you want to work on?’ Or ‘what do you think you’ll be working on?’ I often struggle with these questions because I don’t really know what teams exist within the org so it’s hard for me to l tell the interviewer what I want when I don’t even know the options. In fact, I don’t really mind what I get assigned to, and sometimes I know what I don’t want to do better than what I do want to do (for example, I definitely don’t want to do front end, but other than that I don’t really mind which part of the backend I get put into)

I’ve thought of answering back with something like ‘I don’t have a huge preference, but I’d like to work on whatever will be most impactful for the companies based on my skillsets. If you really have to make me choose, then I’d do …’, but I don’t know if that makes me sound unconfident.

so how do you go about answering these questions?

Charlie Vuong · Accepted Answer

As an intern, it's fine to sound uncertain on what you want to work on because you haven't been exposed to enough domains to have a strong opinion. But, I would at least let the company know which part of the stack you want to work on so they can help guide you better. If you are going to be interning for 3 months, you don't want to get stuck on a project that you don't want to work on, so you should be transparent about what direction you are leaning towards.

Since you don't know what teams exist in the org, it may be worth it to ask the company about which teams are accepting interns and a quick blurb about the team and projects they've worked on before. You could even ask to schedule a meeting with someone on the team to see if the work aligns with your interests.

How to answer “what do you want to work on”?

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