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Questions to ask a company during a job interview

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Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#251

Post by logfromblammo »

atulatul wrote: post #242
jcadam wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Florida and nearly 40 :) I've landed a fairly good spot now, might actually stay longer than my usual 1-2 years.

> my usual 1-2 years A genuine question...(I am not from USA.) Is this 1-2 years period normal for many people/IT companies? Is it similar to contracting- benefits and tech/business exposure wise?

It's a nice balance between not having to run the job search gauntlet for a while, and not getting significant pay increases or advancement opportunities unless you get a new job at a different company.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#252

Post by neogodless »

protomyth wrote: post #247
neogodless wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first, I was like, it's crazy that this company did this. And then as I was reading through the description, I realized this actually happened to me. It wasn't identical, but there are similarities. First, the project was described as "green-field, we're doing cool stuff writing MVC apps from the ground up." I was assigned to build SSRS reports. Second, the shiny building with the sales people, recruiters, executi…

I worked at a place that had decided to increase office space in an unusual way. They once had done their own power generation with an oil boiler and had a very large underground concrete oil bunker. They eventually tore down the power plant and "cleaned" out the bunker. So, someone, bless their soul, came up with the idea of putting a cube farm in the bunker. Well, even cleaned and sealed, concrete 'bleeds' oil for…

"They're only employees. What could they possibly need?"

Yes, oddly enough I left because I started dating someone and looked for a job closer to her.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#253

Post by iamthepieman »

roland35 wrote: post #203
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.

I agree it is terrible to reset the seniority clock after 10 years! I found it very difficult to negotiate this as well, but if you're hiring a senior position do you expect applicants to be happy about losing 1-2 weeks vacation time??

It's worked for me by treating this as a given (given that I will be working for them, I will be at least maintaining the PTO that I had at my previous company) and by offering alternatives for HR. Sometimes companies have personal time that is separate from PTO. You often won't get this time paid out to you if you quit and still have hours but since I plan on using it all every year that's not a big problem. Some companies can give you extra floating holidays or other types of time off to make up the difference.

You usually only have to resort to that if the HR system is inflexible and someone is making a big deal about it. A blanket statement that we don't do that, can't do that and won't think about doing that is usually a bad sign.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#254

Post by ryandrake »

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

But for the bad companies, the answer might really be NO and you want to avoid them! I joined a place once without any of these. No source control, no bug tracker, no QA or testing, failing builds were the norm, and people worked to make things compile just before releases happened. Releases, by the way, were cut from whatever happened to be on the lead developer’s workstation on the day the Eng manager decided to release. It was a circus.

As much as we’d like to believe tech shops are at least all run by grownups, things like source control and working builds are NOT to be assumed!

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#255

Post by atulatul »

harimau777 wrote: post #63

A problem that I've had is that every company says that they value code quality, emphasize developer growth, value developer's technical feedback, etc. even if they don't in practice. I've debated taking a page from old school behavioral interviewing and asking questions like: Tell me about a time that you made a decision to improve code quality or architecture at the expense of a deadline. Tell me about a time that…

I have asked questions like:

Do engineers have access to safari books?

Did you sponsor any conference passes/ training?

(I got answers like we have certification amount re-reimbursement policy(turns out for only pre-approved/ business significant courses). We have internal Community Of Practice sessions, etc.)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#256

Post by C1sc0cat »

astura wrote: post #246
BurningFrog wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiters will possibly say anything to get a sale. But when talking to your future peers/team mates, I think you can expect a lot of honesty if you ask the right questions about how things really are. I know I'm always 100% honest, because if they get hired, we'll be coworkers, and they'll know if I lied!! PS It's weird that you didn't get the title in the contract

I've never flat out lied to a candidate, but I know part of my job as an interviewer is to sell the company/position, so I put a positive spin on things. Same thing the candidate is doing. It's not even uncommon to be hired for one role and end up in another role for whatever reason. Another thing is, policies change. Your interviewer could be grandfathered in and not know it (or know it, but don't mention it...). Or…

An interviewer must absolutely know what the T&C's are - sounds like your place is a bit of a shambles

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#257

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

chii wrote: post #154
theamk wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

qubes-like solutions are great at preventing malicious code from accessing your internal websites, but pretty useless from "code leak" perspective. If you have downloaded a trojaned "super library" and put it to your build process, it will, by definition, be in the same security domain as your source code. Unless you audit all file accesses and outgoing internet access, you won't be able to prevent code exfiltration.

is code exfiltration really the threat model though?

Depends on whether you work on a product or in IT. For products in certain industries, yes, it is a concern.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#258

Post by jcadam »

BurningFrog wrote: post #245
jcadam wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, my official title was "Lead Engineer" in the HR system. I just wasn't given any "lead" tasks or responsibilities.

How annoying :( At least you can put the title on your resume!

Oh yes, I do :)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#260

Post by protomyth »

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.

Some folks have problems with their ears. Noise canceling headphones feel like they are exerting constant pressure which kills focus and concentration. Head in vice feeling is not fun.
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