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

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#291

Post by UncleOxidant » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 5:54 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…

Yep. It's happened to me as well. Based on the questions they were asking me in the interview and based on the folks who were interviewing me I got the impression I was going to be working on a certain technology very interesting to me. It took them a while to actually make the offer (2 months), by the time I started they indeed had me working on that interesting technology... but then about 2 weeks in it was like "There's been an urgent change, we now need to shift you over to working on some other [much less interesting set of tasks mostly involving writing documentation]." I figured, OK, this is just a temporary thing and after the urgent project blows over I'll get back to what they wanted me to work on originally. I'd often ask when I was getting back to work on the original project and they'd always hem and haw. Eventually it became clear that it was a bait&switch.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#292

Post by muttled » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #289

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 joined a team that does agile software development. Apparently that meant that occasionally a slack bot asks me what I did recently.

That's what happens when programmers get promoted, even your bosses try to automate their jobs.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#293

Post by jrockway » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #132

mcv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Google in the US does this. I was on call for my team about once a month and at the end of the year, the bonus for merely being available was quite large. (I think it was something like $1600 a week, but I could be misremembering.)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#294

Post by theamk » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #111

theamk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the last interview, I've had similar thing happen to me -- after we discussed whiteboard design question, the candidate asked, "how would you solve this?". This resulted in a pretty nice exchange of opinions. In a somewhat related point, last time I was designing the coding question, I tested it on my teammmates. They all solved it, and their response was very helpful, and it allowed me to clarify some points…

> They all solved it But did they all solve in under the interview conditions? ( time pressure, coding infront of strangers, possiblity of not getting the job that you need etc). I can pretty much solve all leetcodes on my own computer with noone staring at me like hungry wolf eyeing its next meal.

I usually allocate up to 20 minutes for that problem during the interview, maybe extending this to 30 minutes if they are not doing too well.

My goal was that the co-workers solve it under 10 minutes -- that 3x length factor is trying to compensate for harsher interview conditions.

As for leetcodes -- I just looked at the site, and my interview question would be rated 'easy'. In fact, I'd say that most of the 'easy' questions there are too hard for the programming interview.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#295

Post by donretag » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

For companies that offer "unlimited" PTO, it is good to ask what is the average number of days actually taken off by employees. Are multi-week vacations doable? Have vacations ever been denied (happened to me)?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#296

Post by donretag » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:06 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…

> Problem: Interviewers lie.

> and I was absolutely not going to be leading anything

This scenario has been basically my life for the past several jobs. Companies will lie just to get you in the door. Never ask "Will I ...", because the answer is always yes. NEVER trust what a company offers.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#297

Post by duxup » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

muttled wrote: post #292

duxup wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I joined a team that does agile software development. Apparently that meant that occasionally a slack bot asks me what I did recently.

That's what happens when programmers get promoted, even your bosses try to automate their jobs.

That's a good point.

I actually don't mind it. I'm a noob, it's a small shop, and i'm not sure I'd like a pure "agile" environment anyway... or would want to risk it going wrong.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#298

Post by Stratoscope » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:12 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.

> PTO is a non taxed benefit.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but income from PTO/vacation/sick leave is taxed the same as any other income.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#299

Post by sixstringtheory » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

Zircom wrote: post #168

0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ve…

In the US at least, legally HR can tell them whatever they want. However if the supply anything besides employment dates, title, and whether or not they are eligible for rehire, they'll be open to a civil suit if the information given negatively affected their job prospects

> if the information given negatively affected their job prospects

Asking a prospective employer what your references said about you if they pass on you sounds like a tall order. I'm lucky if I can even get a response to a cover letter + resume, definitely have never been given feedback about a sample project solution or interview (other than hired or not).

Am I wrong and it's actually one of the easier pieces of feedback to get?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#300

Post by rolltiide » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #289

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 joined a team that does agile software development. Apparently that meant that occasionally a slack bot asks me what I did recently.

hahaha I love it because its true, but you do assume that your manager reads the answers right?

One thing I didn't notice for a few quarters was that the slack bot was not automatically configured to show the other people in the standup what was written. This is very important to the standup concept so you can discuss and help others on a task if it seems relevant, and everyone is aware.