Where do you see yourself in two or three years

Show self-awareness, describe your direction of growth and tie it to being useful to the company. Three steps, none of them spare.

#Theory

#TL;DR

• Step 1: self-awareness, you know where you are going and why.
• Step 2: the direction of growth, technical, product or leadership.
• Step 3: the tie to the product, you grow by contributing.
• "I do not know" reads as having no plans.
• "In your job" sounds like a threat rather than an ambition.

#An example answer

In two or three years I see myself as a strong engineer who does not just write code but shapes the architecture and influences product quality. I want to develop towards architecture and systems thinking: understanding performance, UX and scalability more deeply, and taking part in designing solutions rather than only implementing them. I also want to be part of growing the team: mentoring junior developers, sharing what I know, helping establish better practices. Overall the goal is to become someone the team can lean on technically and trust with hard problems.

#How to strengthen it

• "I want to develop towards architecture, so I can design solutions from scratch."
• "I am interested in owning not just my code but a technical direction of the product."
• "I want to be the person who helps the team get stronger."

#Common mistakes

• "I do not know, we will see": reads as having no plans.
• "I want your job": sounds like a threat rather than an ambition.
• A plan with obviously nothing to do with this role.
• Promising to become a manager when you are applying for a purely engineering role.