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Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

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Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#31

Post by cooervo »

cryptozeus wrote: post #28

IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed. I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site…

WTF. That might be in your country but in Europe this is pretty normal question. If you are going to be hired you have the right to know these.

You seem like an exploiter.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#32

Post by tomca32 »

cryptozeus wrote: post #28

IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed. I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site…

Couldn't disagree more. The fact that the company doesn't like those questions would be a massive red flag to me that they indeed expect me to work weekends.

Times are great to be a software engineer. Don't squander that opportunity working for a place that won't respect you especially when there are so many wonderful places to work at where you will be respected.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#33

Post by throwawaymath »

cryptozeus wrote: post #28

IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed. I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site…

You really should not be using basic questions concerning things like work life balance as a hiring heuristic for candidates. If nothing else, from a purely pragmatic standpoint you do not receive any new information from a question about work life balance other than, "This candidate has a question about work life balance."

Your interpretation of that question is going to be noisy, subjective, unreliable and intrinsically incomplete. That makes it an exceptionally poor hiring signal. The idea that you can divine interesting insights about a candidate's employability or character based on mundane interview questions is fundamentally flawed.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#34

Post by mi_lk »

cryptozeus wrote: post #28

IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed. I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site…

If asking working hours means being flagged as not committed, I would seriously question the quality of the interviewee and subsequently the company.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#35

Post by INTPenis »

What is a team? I know we're on HN but there are many different types of teams.

I work in sort of devops teams and I've helped conduct the technical part of a few interviews so I made some questions for that reason.

1. Some technical questions but they're not that important.

2. More important is what they do in their off time. I always try to figure out how nerdy they are.

One person when asked the 2nd type of question brought out their mobile phone and showed us how they could control their entire home with an open source automation system and a homemade app they made themselves.

They were hired and they were very good.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#37

Post by jowiar »

INTPenis wrote: post #35

What is a team? I know we're on HN but there are many different types of teams. I work in sort of devops teams and I've helped conduct the technical part of a few interviews so I made some questions for that reason. 1. Some technical questions but they're not that important. 2. More important is what they do in their off time. I always try to figure out how nerdy they are. One person when asked the 2nd type of questi…

Re #2: Ugh. This sort of thing is a selector for plenty that is negative about the tech industry — selects for young single men without a family.

Frankly, I want to go home at night and do anything but code. Music, art, explore the city, have friends. And I want to work with others who value the same.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#38

Post by edw519 » 

  1. % time spent programming, % time spent not programming?
  2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love your job?
  3. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
  4. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the business requirements you receive?
  5. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
  6. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the technical specs you receive?
  7. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
  8. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the dev environment?
  9. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
  10. Avg length of time from dev complete to deployed into production?
  11. If you had not picked this, what would you have picked? Why?
  12. Biggest regret from this job?
  13. Biggest success from this job?
  14. How much longer to you see yourself working here?
  15. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the existing code base?
  16. How far to closest Chinese buffet?

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#39

Post by throwawaymath »

INTPenis wrote: post #35

What is a team? I know we're on HN but there are many different types of teams. I work in sort of devops teams and I've helped conduct the technical part of a few interviews so I made some questions for that reason. 1. Some technical questions but they're not that important. 2. More important is what they do in their off time. I always try to figure out how nerdy they are. One person when asked the 2nd type of questi…

> One person when asked the 2nd type of question brought out their mobile phone and showed us how they could control their entire home with an open source automation system and a homemade app they made themselves.

They were hired and they were very good.

They would have been an equally capable hire if they did not have the time or inclination to complete that project. Moreover you can acquire all the skills a capable software engineer has without having personal projects. That means this is a poor heuristic for hiring criteria and candidate assessment.

Re: Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role?

#40

Post by GFischer »

Ok, for infosec I'm not sure.

For dev work, I'd ask the questions in the Joel test.

Some questions do apply (I wouldn't expect a 100% YES answer, but hopefully most of them):

  Do you have two monitors (or more)
  Do you get a fast PC
  Do you get your choice of mouse and keyboard
  Do you have a comfortable chair
  Do you have a fast (and unfiltered) internet connection
  Do you have quiet working conditions
  Do you use the best tools money can buy? 
  Do you support developer education by attending conferences, purchasing books, or something of that nature?
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