I've been working for a company for 8 months and I have asked for a feedback session from my boss. I'm interested generally to know what he thinks of my work, but what specific areas should I ask about that might be useful for me to know?
I am a web developer.
In general, the question I always want answered is "what do I need to improve upon, or start doing, in order to achieve my goal at this company?" However, that requires you to ask yourself "what is my goal at this company?"
It could be straightforward - if you're a lower-level developer, and the company has higher levels you can reach, then your first goal might be to reach the next level, and you can ask what you'd need to do to accomplish that. Or it could require you (or your boss) to think outside the box - if you're the only web developer for a small company, then possibly there's no next level to reach, and you could ask how you might be able to use your skills to further assist the company.
A caveat, though - don't worry about the next goal unless you're doing quite well with your current tasks. One near-certainty about being promoted or taking on additional duties is that you're handling your current duties well. So you likely want to ask "how am I doing?" first, to make sure you and your boss are on the same page about your current standing, and if they bring up anything to work on, to assure them you will focus on any areas needing improvement.
This depends on many factors -- your role, team size, how collaborative the team is, company culture, line of business, and more. Here are some areas to think about (these are not the wording you should use in asking the questions):
How's the quality and timeliness of my work? Am I hitting the right balance of "get it done" and "do it well"/paying down technical debt? Am I learning our technology at the rate you expected?
How are my interactions with teammates? Is there anything I should be doing more of or less of? (Think about meetings and talking too much or not enough, about collaboration on bugs, and whatever else is relevant in your role.)
Any process stuff I'm not doing the way you want?
What should I be doing, or doing more of, to succeed in this role?
Some of this is really situation-dependent, though. I recently had a conversation like this, as the only remote member of my team, where I made a point of asking about my participation in our meetings (where I'm the only one on the phone and we can't see each other). It would be easy to talk too much or too little, to miss things going on in the room, to accidentally be unclear or talk over people because of the lack of visual signal, and so on. As the remote employee I think abut those things, but I wouldn't expect my manager to (unless there were a glaring problem, and you want to catch it earlier than that). So think about the things that might cause you, in your role, to have unusual effects on other people, ones they won't be thinking about up-front, and ask about those.
Break it down to code, design, working with peers, working with customers (if you do), and working with the boss. Ask "Where can I improve?"
I think if your employer is unhappy with anything, they will tell you or signal you during normal work interactions. It's not hard to know if you are performing well or not, either at work or in a relationship. If you are fishing for compliments, don't waste your time.
Here is what I want in a periodic review.
1) What can I do to carve out some time, on the job, to explore areas of interest to me that I in my own judgement think might benefit the company.
2) Can we set some learning goals that will improve my mastery of the skills that the company needs me to perform well.
3) How would we define my work and performance in terms of the purpose of the work I do in these key areas: Customer experience, advancement of the organization, value to my fellow employees.
A discussion that outlines these important factors that are shown to directly link to your job satisfaction and the quality of your contribution to your company is far more important than a blow by blow evaluation of some past actions. Don't focus on past actions in discussion with your manager. Focus on the future. In your daily work, do your best and whatever it takes to deliver for your customers, company and coworkers and you'll never have to worry about the past.
