Last Updated on June 11, 2026
By Florian Smeritschnig, former McKinsey Senior Consultant · Updated June 2026
The McKinsey Technical Expertise Interview (TEI), also called the Technical Experience Interview, is the interview McKinsey uses for technical and digital roles: one opening question about a real project from your past, followed by 15 to 20 probing follow-ups. It tests how you think through technical problems and whether you can translate them into business impact, not whether you have memorized a tool.
Most candidates prepare for it like a tech screen. That is the mistake. After coaching specialists and experienced hires into McKinsey alongside hundreds of candidates overall, I can tell you the TEI almost never rejects people for lacking technical depth. It rejects them for answering like an engineer talking to another engineer, with no stakes, no decisions, and no business outcome in the story.
This guide covers who gets a TEI, the exact format, real question patterns with the follow-up ladder behind them, how the TEI differs from the PEI and the case interview, and a preparation plan that works.
Key Takeaways
- The TEI examines one real technical experience in forensic depth: one opening prompt, then 15-20 follow-ups into your decisions, trade-offs, and results.
- It is used for technical and digital roles: software engineers, data scientists and analysts, designers, agile coaches, and expert-track hires, including McKinsey Digital and QuantumBlack.
- Interviewers score your judgment and business translation, not tool proficiency. You are not expected to know every tool; you are expected to defend every decision.
- Its biggest advantage over a case interview is predictability: the interview is about your own projects, so deep preparation pays off directly.
- Prepare two projects per technical topic on your resume, structured with SCORE, each with a quantified business outcome.
What is the McKinsey Technical Expertise Interview?
The McKinsey Technical Expertise Interview (TEI) is an in-depth interview on one real technical project from your background. The interviewer opens with a broad prompt, then drills into your problem-solving approach, technical decisions, trade-offs, and the impact you created, through 15 to 20 follow-up questions. McKinsey also refers to it as the Technical Experience Interview; both names describe the same interview.
| TEI logistics | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Who gets it | Candidates for technical, digital, and expert-track roles (not generalist consultants) |
| Format | One opening question + 15-20 probing follow-ups on a single experience |
| Who interviews you | Technical experts: specialists, senior experts, and expert partners in your field |
| Where it sits | Alongside the PEI and, for many roles, a case interview, across the interview rounds |
| What is scored | Problem-solving approach, technical judgment, communication, business impact |
| What is NOT scored | Encyclopedic tool knowledge or one “correct” solution |
The closest comparison is McKinsey’s Personal Experience Interview (PEI): both interrogate a single story at depth. The difference is the lens. The PEI probes behavioral dimensions like leadership and drive; the TEI probes your technical reasoning on a project you actually delivered.
Who gets a TEI at McKinsey?
If you are applying for any role where your craft is the product, expect a TEI. That includes:
- Software and product engineers, including roles in McKinsey Digital
- Data scientists, data engineers, and analytics specialists, including QuantumBlack, McKinsey’s AI arm
- Designers (product, UX, service design)
- Agile coaches and product managers in transformation roles
- Expert-track and specialist hires in fields like pricing, operations, or risk
Generalist consultant applicants do not face a TEI; their loop is the case interview plus PEI. Technical candidates usually face a mixed loop: TEI plus PEI, often a case or business-judgment discussion, and for some engineering roles additional hands-on stages such as coding or code-review sessions. Many TEI candidates enter as experienced hires, where the process differs from campus recruiting in pace and emphasis.
One naming note so you recognize it in your invite: recruiters use “Technical Expertise Interview” and “Technical Experience Interview” interchangeably. For software roles, the invite sometimes just says “technical interview with an expert.”
The TEI format: one question, then a ladder of follow-ups
The TEI resembles a legal cross-examination more than a conversation. It starts with one primary question, something as broad as “Describe a technical project from your previous job,” and then the interviewer works downward, layer by layer, into that single experience.
However, the follow-ups are not random. Across the TEI processes I have coached candidates through, the questions walk a predictable ladder:
- What did you build or solve, and what was the context?
- Why did you approach it that way?
- What alternatives did you consider and reject?
- What trade-offs did that decision create, and how did you handle them?
- What was the outcome, in numbers the business cares about?
- What did you learn, and what would you do differently?
[ORIGINAL VISUAL: -2026.png. A six-rung ladder graphic showing the TEI follow-up escalation from “what” to “what would you do differently,” with an interviewer’s focus annotation at each rung. Alt: “” HERO IMAGE, square + 16:9 crops for Discover and Lens.]
Two things follow from this structure. First, you cannot bluff: a memorized project summary survives rung one and collapses at rung three, because “what alternatives did you reject” has no scripted answer. Second, you can prepare honestly and thoroughly, because every rung is knowable in advance for a project you genuinely delivered. That is what makes the TEI the most predictable interview in the McKinsey loop, and the one where preparation converts most directly into performance.
What the interviewer writes down afterward is evidence, not impressions. “Chose X over Y because of the data-volume constraint, quantified the impact at 20% cost reduction” survives the evaluation discussion. “Seems technically strong” does not. Give them sentences they can write down.
McKinsey TEI questions: real patterns by role
Every TEI opens broad and narrows fast. The opening prompts look like:
- “Describe a technical project from your previous job.”
- “Walk me through the most complex problem you solved in your field.”
- “Tell me about a time your technical recommendation was challenged.”
From there, the probing follows the ladder, with role-specific flavor:
| Role family | What the follow-ups dig into |
|---|---|
| Data science / analytics | Model and method choice (“Why this approach over a simpler baseline?”), data quality handling, how you validated results, how the analysis changed a business decision |
| Software engineering | Architecture and design decisions, scalability and reliability trade-offs, technical debt calls, how you handled disagreement on a technical direction |
| Design | How you identified user needs, design decisions under constraint, how you measured whether the design worked |
| Agile / product | Prioritization calls, stakeholder conflicts, how you measured delivery health, a transformation that stalled and what you did |
Typical probing questions that cut across all roles:
- “What was your thought process in that situation?”
- “Why did you choose one method over another?”
- “How did you handle differing opinions on the technical approach?”
- “What was the final outcome, and what did you learn?”
Whatever the project, steer every answer toward the business impact you generated. This is the single biggest scoring lever in the TEI, because McKinsey hires technologists to change client businesses. For example, an answer that ends at “the pipeline ran 40% faster” is incomplete. The complete version reaches the decision it changed: “which cut the team’s reporting cycle from weekly to daily and changed how pricing decisions were made.”
For role-specific examples straight from the source, McKinsey’s own video walks through questions for different technical roles:
TEI vs PEI vs case interview: what each one tests
Technical candidates usually face more than one interview type in the loop, and mixing up the preparation is a common failure. Here is the split:
| TEI | PEI | Case interview | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | One real technical project | One real behavioral story | A hypothetical business problem |
| Tests | Technical judgment + business translation | Leadership, drive, connection, growth | Structuring, math, exhibit interpretation, communication, business sense |
| Format | 1 question + 15-20 follow-ups | One dimension probed 10-15 min | 20-30 min interactive problem-solving |
| Predictability | High: your own projects | High: your own stories | Low: unknown scenario |
| Who faces it | Technical and expert roles | Everyone | Generalists and most technical roles |
The deeper difference from the case interview: the TEI is not about reaching one correct solution. You are not expected to be fluent in every tool that exists for the job. The interviewer wants a deep understanding of your area, the essential concepts, the realistic solution space, and the ability to discuss options like a senior practitioner.
In a case interview the unknown scenario is the test; in the TEI, your known history is, which means leaving it unprepared wastes the one interview you could have fully controlled.
McKinsey outlines the overall process on its careers page; treat the TEI as the technical sibling of the PEI within that loop.
How to prepare for the McKinsey TEI
The preparation that works is behavioral-interview discipline applied to technical material. Here is the system:
| Preparation step | What to do |
|---|---|
| Map your technical topics | List every tool, method, and domain on your resume and in the job description; refresh fundamentals on each. You will be probed on what you claimed |
| Pick two projects per topic | At least one with clear business context. Depth beats variety: choose projects where you owned decisions |
| Prepare the ladder per project | For each: context, your decisions, rejected alternatives, trade-offs, quantified outcome, lessons. Write bullets, never scripts |
| Structure with SCORE | Use the SCORE framework (Situation, Complication, Outcome expectation, Remedial action, End result) so stakes and your actions stay center stage |
| Quantify the impact | Every project ends with a number the business cares about: revenue, cost, time, risk, adoption |
| Prepare for the fit half too | The TEI sits next to behavioral interviews; the fit interview guide covers the question bank |
| Pressure-test with an expert | Have someone technical play interrogator: 15 follow-ups on one project, including “why not X?” You cannot rehearse the ladder alone |
Expect your interviewers to be exactly the people the format promises: specialists, senior experts, and expert partners in your field. They will not be impressed by name-dropping tools they use daily. They will be impressed by clean reasoning about trade-offs, honest “here is what I got wrong” moments, and outcomes tied to the business.
A coaching observation worth front-loading: the candidates I see fail TEIs are rarely the least technical. They are the ones who never translate. Practicing your stories with a non-technical listener until the stakes land is worth more than another evening of tool revision. That translation drill is exactly what I run with technical candidates in 1-on-1 coaching.
Frequently asked questions
What does TEI stand for at McKinsey?
Technical Expertise Interview, also called the Technical Experience Interview. It is the interview McKinsey uses for technical and digital roles: one real project from your background examined through 15 to 20 probing follow-up questions.
Is the McKinsey TEI a coding interview?
No. The TEI is a structured discussion of a past project, not a live coding test. Some engineering roles add separate hands-on stages such as coding or code-review sessions, but the TEI itself tests judgment, trade-off reasoning, and business impact, not syntax.
How long is the TEI and how many questions are asked?
Plan for roughly 30 to 45 minutes on a single experience: one opening question, then 15 to 20 follow-ups that dig into your decisions, alternatives, trade-offs, and results.
What is the difference between the TEI and the PEI?
Both examine one real experience in depth. The PEI probes behavioral dimensions like leadership and connection, while the TEI probes technical reasoning on a project you delivered. Technical candidates usually face both in the same loop and should prepare separate story banks for each.
How do I prepare for the TEI if my projects had no obvious business impact?
Translate the impact that existed: time saved, errors reduced, decisions enabled, risk avoided, adoption achieved. Academic or internal-tooling projects still changed something for someone; quantify that. An honest, modest number beats a vague claim of transformation.
Do all McKinsey candidates get a TEI?
No. Generalist consulting applicants face case interviews plus the PEI. The TEI is specific to technical, digital, and expert-track roles, including McKinsey Digital and QuantumBlack positions.
Related guides
- McKinsey Values and Purpose interview: the mission-alignment interview in the same loop
- McKinsey salary and hierarchy: what the roles you are interviewing for actually pay
- How long to prepare for consulting interviews: realistic timelines by starting point
- McKinsey Keep in Touch program: what happens if this attempt does not land
Final word
The McKinsey Technical Expertise Interview is the most preparable interview in the loop: it is about projects you already delivered, probed along a ladder you now know in advance. Pick two projects per topic, prepare every rung honestly, structure each story with SCORE, and end every answer at the business impact. Do the translation work before the interview, and the 15 follow-ups become the easiest part of your McKinsey process.
For the behavioral half of the loop, start with the StrategyCase Fit Interview Masterclass and walk into every story-based interview, technical or personal, with the same structure.
About the author: Florian Smeritschnig is a former McKinsey Senior Consultant and the founder of StrategyCase. He spent five years at the firm, evaluated candidates, and has since run more than 2,200 mock interviews and coached hundreds of candidates, generalists, specialists, and experienced experts alike, into McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top firms.
