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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

#341

Post by marsRoverDev »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #109
relax88 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

As a person whose straddled infosec and development, I always struggled with this. The multiple development machines is probably the best approach, but I've never truly seen it implemented correctly. I would love to not need admin access to my machine, but each time the companies I've worked for try this, it's always a struggle to do anything. This is everything from, "I need to modify/monitor core components of the…

Multiple machines approach can work if you have an IT person dedicated to a development team, located in the same office, with a low ratio of IT-to-other-staff.

If the process for getting something like IntelliJ IDEA installed on an airgapped machine involves less than an hour with their help, it's workable. If it is not, forget it.

Unfortunately, it takes a lot for management in most companies to see why this is a good idea, and why spending that much on staff ratios is a good idea.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#342

Post by wonderwonder »

"Does the company provide hardware and what's the refresh schedule?" - I really wish I had thought to ask this on my first remote job. Everyone is surprised when I show up at company meetings and don't have a laptop I can develop on. I work on a desktop, if you want me to have a laptop capable of running windows docker at the meeting we have every 6 months on the other side of the country, buy me one.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#343

Post by kube-system »

denton-scratch wrote: post #277
kingbirdy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most employees (at least in the US) aren't given a contract, they're given an offer of employment. This provides no guarantees as to what work you'll do, or the conditions you'll do it in, and both can change at any time.

An offer of employment is a contract, if there is an exchange of benefits involved in the agreement (you work for us X days a week, we pay you Y). Even if it's only verbal, it's a contract; contract law applies, and if you can prove the conversation happened, you can enforce the contract in law. This is the same in the USA and in the UK. But of course, it's much better to get a written contract before starting work (…

It is very common for employment offer letters in the US to clearly specify that employment is offered at will. This status has slightly different exceptions by jurisdiction, but in general, it means the agreement can be terminated at any time by either party.

Most people summarize this as "you can be fired for no reason", because that's the most commonly discussed scenario. But, your employer doesn't have to terminate your employment to terminate your employment agreement.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/at-will-em...

> At-will also means that an employer can change the terms of the employment relationship with no notice and no consequences. For example, an employer can alter wages, terminate benefits, or reduce paid time off.

Now, they can't do this retroactively, but they can do it with zero notice.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#344

Post by freedomben »

hinkley wrote: post #320
drongoking wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to say basically this. I've worked at enough companies to know that their ideas of what their values are may not be accurate. Instead of asking about values, ask about behavior. No one is going to say no to "Do you value code quality?" Aking what they've done (and sacrificed) to support code quality will give you a better idea of what their relative values are. Asking about their tech ladder will get you…

The charitable way to put it is that the stated values of most companies are aspirational, not descriptive. But it's hard in some cases not to feel lied to when you see the gap. At least in dating when this happens you can get out early. You don't get the same trial period with work arrangements.

I've learned this the hard way twice now. I hope people reading this pay very close attention to your comment.

In fact one of the hardest lessons I've learned is that the companies who are the most vocal/passionate about their "values" are often the ones that are the farthest from them.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#345

Post by freedomben »

rat9988 wrote: post #286
RobertDeNiro wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that extreme. Interviews are meant to ensure candidates aren't lying on their resumes, but nothing is done to ensure companies aren't lying too.

I'm pretty sure you can leave in the first weeks easily in most countries.

Sure, but then you've lost out on other offers that you may have declined, and you're back to unemployed.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#346

Post by freedomben »

reallydontask wrote: post #70
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…

friend of mine joined a company that in theory checked all the boxes, in practice, none. Extreme case but ...

It's happened to me twice now. I'm loving the ideas in this thread about asking the, "tell me about a time when ..." style questions because I've always delved deep into the culture and values philosophy, and have found that so far each company was describing their aspirational ideal, which did not reflect practice at all.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#347

Post by mcv »

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?

Yes, Netherland. It's entirely possible it's required by law to pay people for the time they work, so that could explain the difference.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#348

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

grogenaut wrote: post #241
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.

Asking these questions a lot in interviews to candidates most people lie by either talking in generalities, or back off and are honest like "were going through that now" both give you an answer. I have not asked this directly in an interview but my normal tactic is to have lunch with the engineers and no manager which gets you lots of examples.

How do you get to have lunch with the engineers before joining the company?

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#349

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

svckr wrote: post #235
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…

I totally agree and, anecdotally, the last time I was interviewing for a position, the thing I was terrified of the most was running out of questions to ask (which happened eventually, after 5 rounds of interviews with ample time in between). I'm happy to be adding a few more questions to my list now :)

5 rounds of interviews?! Jesus, where's that a thing?

Most I've had in EU was 3 rounds. 1 HR/recruiter, 2 technical, 3 technical+personal then offer

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