Questions to ask a company during a job interview • Hacker News Board

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#131

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

iamthepieman wrote: post #82

jrjarrett wrote: post #65

How much annual / personal / sick / parental / unpaid leave is available? This is a great question; when I have searched for jobs, it's one of the more important benefits to me. Sadly, however, I've found most places have gone to "PTO" -- combining time off for illness and vacation into one bank -- how have others successfully negotiated an appropriate level of time off? (Context: For a very long time, I worked for c…

I just tell them how much time off I'll need during salary negotiations. I know you offer two weeks PTO and 3 weeks after 5 year, 4 weeks after 10 years etc. But I'm not restarting my PTO every time I switch companies. So I will come in with PTO equal to my experience at a minimum.

PTO is nothing special. It’s just another benefit you can place a monetary amount on. If they won’t give you more than two weeks paid time off and they will let you take unpaid time off, add the amount that week of unpaid time off is worth to your required salary - of course take into account that PTO is a non taxed benefit.

I feel the same way about 401K matching.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#132

Post by dominotw » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #93

mttyng wrote: post #61

> What's the on-call plan/schedule? (what's the pay for standby and call-out) I’ve never been in a position where we were paid for on-call (i.e. fix prod at 2am) work. Is that not typical?

The only job where I had to be on-call, we got paid extra during the week we were scheduled, and got paid more extra for the hours we put in.

Are you in europe?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#133

Post by z0rn_3301 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

During interviews I really like to propose a reversed interview. Usually I can identify faster a high potential from a benefit seeking hooker. Thx for sharing tho

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#134

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #131

iamthepieman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just tell them how much time off I'll need during salary negotiations. I know you offer two weeks PTO and 3 weeks after 5 year, 4 weeks after 10 years etc. But I'm not restarting my PTO every time I switch companies. So I will come in with PTO equal to my experience at a minimum.

PTO is nothing special. It’s just another benefit you can place a monetary amount on. If they won’t give you more than two weeks paid time off and they will let you take unpaid time off, add the amount that week of unpaid time off is worth to your required salary - of course take into account that PTO is a non taxed benefit. I feel the same way about 401K matching.

Ok, but how can you value 401K tax benefits? It seems complicated.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#135

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

tomekowal wrote: post #12

I would change the part: ``` Do you use source control? Do you test code? Do you use bug tracking? Do you use CI/CD? ``` to ``` How do you use source control? How do you test code? How do you perfrom bug tracking? How do you solve CI/CD? ``` For really good companies asking if they test code seems insulting :P

It depends - I know plenty of companies that believe in the Mechanical Turk style of testing - just hire more QAs (usually outsourced). If they are okay with that, I’m not going to push back.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#136

Post by magashna » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:34 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #99

Problem: Interviewers lie. I once interviewed with a company that brought me into a new, shiny, well-appointed building on the corporate campus for an interview. I did well answering their questions. And they answered my usual questions correctly. Stuff like "Can developers here choose their own tools?" and "My title is going to be Lead Engineer, will I actually be a Lead Engineer?" After I was hired, I found out eve…

This almost sounds like a joke it's so bad. When a market is hot, how can they expect you to just go along with it?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#137

Post by aglionby » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #125

anon1m0us wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal to lie on your resume, but lying to your recruits -- oh, that's fine. Corporate Immunity.

The only resume falsehoods that can actually get you in legal trouble are around your educational record, I think. See: http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/lying-on-your-resume/ Mostly it's just the risk that you'll be found out and fired (which is similar to the risk on the other side of the table— that the employee will find out and quit).

At least in the UK I'm pretty sure that lying on your CV is fraud by false representation [1]. CIFAS (UK fraud prevention service) produced a suitably scary leaflet [2] to try to discourage recent grads from doing this.

[1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/pdfs/ukpga_20060...

[2] https://cdn.prospects.ac.uk/2.0.9/pdf/Graduate-Employment-Fr...

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#138

Post by viraptor » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #120

reallydontask wrote: post #69

> Is there a support / marketing / other call-heavy team close to my new team? This is so important. I can probably live with most open plan set ups, sure there will be annoying times, but if there is a call-heavy team nearby, forget it. I refuse to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long. FWIW, interviewers will blatantly lie. I asked at an interview about equipment quality and was told that they'd not heard a…

> I refuse to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long. May I ask why? Even when I work at home alone, and there are no stray noises at all, I'll still wear my headphones when I want to really focus. Years of mental conditioning has led me to a place where it's much easier to deeply focus when I'm wearing headphones listening to white noise.

Not the op, but also wouldn't wear them. Weird ear shape means earbuds start hurting after a while, while the over-ear solutions make me sweaty/uncomfortable.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#139

Post by 0xDEFC0DE » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #125

anon1m0us wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's illegal to lie on your resume, but lying to your recruits -- oh, that's fine. Corporate Immunity.

The only resume falsehoods that can actually get you in legal trouble are around your educational record, I think. See: http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/lying-on-your-resume/ Mostly it's just the risk that you'll be found out and fired (which is similar to the risk on the other side of the table— that the employee will find out and quit).

>which is similar to the risk on the other side of the table

In principle but not magnitude, especially if you've relocated.

Usually you cancel any other pending offers once you've accepted a position if you're nice, and that could close some doors because someone else takes those jobs. Might even get you red-flagged if you go back to them and say "this company lied to me so I quit" (the other person has no way to verify that's true or you blew up on someone verbally the first week and got canned).

Someone correct me if HR can give the termination reason, I don't remember.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#140

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #17

a3n wrote: post #3

Why doesn't the interviewee ever ask the interviewer a whiteboard or puzzle question, "to see how you think?"

Because unless you are some sort of celebrity engineer, "interview is a conversation between both parties" is nonsense. Company is interviewing the candidate not the other way around, no matter what we like to think. Edit: Sorry I should've clarified. I am specially referring to companies that don't really have to care about your feelings towards their interviews. FAANGs for example. They simply don't care and there…

Company is interviewing the candidate not the other way around, no matter what we like to think.

I’ve worked for 20+ years but have only gotten serious about job hopping and interviewing for the last ten.

At any given time when I am job hunting I usually have three or four offers within three weeks. Not saying I am a special snowflake. That’s just the reality of the market. I’m very much interviewing the company. I usually have a BATNA of just keeping my current job.

Ofcourse you have leverage when you are interviewing at your local java enterprise shop. But who cares about those jobs, pointless to interview them with your smartass questions, we all know they are pretty much all the same more or less.

Despite the HN bubble where every developer lives on the west coast and works for a FAANG or the next unicorn, that’s the reality for most developers. But there is definitely a difference.