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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

#331

Post by proverbialbunny »

BurningFrog wrote: post #222
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…

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

>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've been lied to by every manager I've ended up working for. Too be fair, they've all been soft social questions, so I am partly to blame on that front. I've been terrible at identifying company culture until after I've taken the job.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#332

Post by mdpopescu »

kaibee wrote: post #142
mikepurvis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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— that the employee will find out and quit) Someone more left/anti-capitalist might argue that this is disproportionately in favor of the employer. The employee is depending on this job for food/shelter. Replacing the employee is much less disruptive to the employer than the employee. Especially considering the employee may have had to move to the area for…

Sure. This is a reason to become your own employer and establish a B2B relationship instead - with all the pros and cons that implies.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#333

Post by crispyporkbites »

hinkley wrote: post #319
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 can't recall the last interview when I was allowed enough time to dig into these sorts of questions. I'm gonna have to sort this out soon, and it's probably going to involve practicing my delivery at the risk of tanking the interview. It's like they're selecting for people who make major decisions based on little or no information. I'm sure that will end well...

Be assertive and ask for 10 minutes at the end for questions. If they don’t give you time to ask questions, don’t work there.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#334

Post by zeven7 »

Diederich wrote: post #108

I've been interviewing with Google since 2006 or so, off and on, though I've never accepted an offer from them. I do this because I always learn several things from the rigorous on-site interviews, it's a lot of fun, and the machine that runs the process seems to not mind being turned down in the past. Back in the beginning of that time period, I used to ask (fairly jokingly) the same question: "How many servers do y…

I may have interviewed you at one point (not at Google).

Either that or someone else is going around with your questions.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#335

Post by oarabbus_ »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #267
r00fus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or worse, interviews and hiring are with group A and the organization has you now working with group B. Obviously A knows little about B. This happens at FAAMG companies.

FAANG, for Netflix. Microsoft does not matter.

Care to elaborate? Why does Microsoft not matter, but Amazon/Apple does?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#336

Post by crispyporkbites »

rolltiide wrote: post #303
acollins1331 wrote: post #7

Interviewing the interviewer has been THE best way to get the job. It just oozes a confidence that you already know you're good enough to get the job, and you're trying to figure out if they are good enough for YOU. Figure out questions before hand that describe the type of good working environments or fixes for bad ones that you've had in the past. The interviewer will quickly shift and try to sell the position to y…

> The interviewer will quickly shift and try to sell the position to you "How long has this position been open?" is useful to subsequently ask "so why is this offer letter expiring in 48 hours?"

I wouldn’t bother, offers don’t expire, no matter what they say

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#337

Post by ram_rar »

Beldur wrote: post #149

In my experience it's important to not ask "easy" questions that can be answered by a simple yes/no. Instead of: Are you friendly to remote work? Ask: Will I be working with anyone who is remote, or who works from home on a regular basis? Instead of: Is the work life balance good? Ask: How responsive are people to emails/Slack over the weekends and after 6pm? Instead of: Can I have a good career path? Ask: Did any of…

I love this method of inquiry. Feels like you're genuinely probing into the company at the same time getting answers to your questions.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#338

Post by muttled »

denton-scratch wrote: post #264
SamBam wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the nice thing about the "tell me about a time when..."-style questions is that it makes it harder to lie, or at least harder top lie believably. None of the interviewers will bat an eyelid answering "do you value developer growth" with a one-word lie "yes," but I think most interviewers would feel uncomfortable making up a story whole-cloth, and that would show. The risk, of course, is that you'll seem rude…

Yes. I love the table-turning style of these questions; but the fact is, they can always answer "No, we can't think of any such examples. Are you going to walk away from the job?" That is to say, hiring is usually a buyer's market.

If that's their answer to something you would want in a company, it's probably way better to find out before you accept.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#339

Post by marsRoverDev »

relax88 wrote: post #43
protonfish wrote: post #24

One I am going to start to ask is "Are all developers allowed to have local admin access of their computers?" I've struggled against this in my last 3 positions. This is a dealbreaker for me, and should be for all developers.

From an infosec professional perspective, this one is always a challenge for security sensitive places. I agree with you that developers need admin rights on their development machines, but I have witnessed first hand why many companies attempt to take away local admin rights. When I'm responding to security alerts where developers have downloaded random .dll files from the internet, or some "troubleshooting utility"…

I worked at one place where instead of giving us root access to our machine, gave us one that was offline (with access to an air-gapped local network and a dedicated IT guy to ensure we had access to tools/IDEs/licenses etc) and another, shittier one that had internet access side by side. This worked fine.

I went somewhere else where we had locked down machines. I am never, ever, ever going back to a place like that. Fuck working in that kind of environment.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#340

Post by fma »

SamBam wrote: post #163
tashoecraft wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just feel that most interviewers when pressed on these are just going to lie unless the company truly does it, which will make it hard to tell whose telling the truth. I guess that's what the whole interview is, detect who is telling the truth about themselves. I think more detail on these questions, and to press on follow ups for specific examples.

I think the nice thing about the "tell me about a time when..."-style questions is that it makes it harder to lie, or at least harder top lie believably. None of the interviewers will bat an eyelid answering "do you value developer growth" with a one-word lie "yes," but I think most interviewers would feel uncomfortable making up a story whole-cloth, and that would show. The risk, of course, is that you'll seem rude…

One of my go to question is "When is the last time you had to work over the weekend".

This will help you determine if projects are mismanaged, how stable their prod environment is...etc

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