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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

#421

Post by jjohansson »

drongoking wrote: post #162
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 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…

Do your homework before the interview and check LinkedIn for promotions. Then ask them about that specifically... why have only x People in the team been promoted in the past few years? Why was Jane Soe promoted to y role?

Bonus is if you reach out to former employees on LinkedIn and ask what it’s like to work there.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#422

Post by ramzyo »

bradlys wrote: post #393
pm215 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect most candidates have at least one question because it's pretty widely known that many employers will ask "do you have any questions for us" at the end of an interview, and so will have prepared something that makes them sound interested in the employer in some way, even if they don't necessarily actually care that much about the answer. (For instance the advice on https://www.wikijob.co.uk/content/interview…

I'll give my anecdote on this: When I used to not have any questions after the interview - I got rejected what felt like a weirdly high amount and definitely a weird tone from the interviewer. When I started asking questions - the interviewer seemed to have a much more positive outlook on me and my acceptance rate went up. I've interviewed a lot and there are people you have to ask questions to or else they will reje…

As an interviewer and hiring manager, a candidate not asking questions indicates a lack of interest in the company/role. I appreciate when a candidate interviews me about the role, the team and the company. It demonstrates a desire to take advantage of an opportunity to gather more information about whether this is the right opportunity for them.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#423

Post by okaleniuk »

mcv wrote: post #95
okaleniuk wrote: post #38

I think, the "source control question" comes from the Joel Test which is 19 years old. Almost every company uses source control now so it doesn't make as much sense. A better question would be "why do you use [the source control they use]". The answer, if coming from a knowing person, may tell you quite a lot about how the technical decisions are taken in the company.

There was definitely a time when that was an important question, because the answer could be "CVS", "nothing" or even "what is that?". Nowadays the answer is practically always "git".

Indeed. But why git? I worked for 3 companies that adopted git for completely different reasons.

The first was open sourcing parts of their code so they just started using GitHub. Makes sense.

The second used to work with Subversion, and they stayed with it. The process was built around having one and only one server with all the CI, and the hooks, and the locks. Git was used with the SVN gate purely for developers' convenience. Makes sense.

The third one was on TFS, and they couldn't quite align their process with it. So they thought "our process is a mess so let's do git". This is a red flag. If you can't get your process straight with relatively simple tool, some more sophisticated tool will (and it did) only make it worse.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#424

Post by deathanatos »

jjkaczor wrote: post #390
nemetroid wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notepad++ wasn't compromised, at least not in the incident referred to in that link. > It's not a vulnerability/security issue in Notepad++

Ah yes - gotta love the HN pedantry - you are of course technically correct, however - a library used by Notepad++ was compromised for a period of time. Outcome from a security perspective was the same.

> a library used by Notepad++ was compromised for a period of time

Nothing at the referenced URL corroborates how you are representing the referenced URL.

According to the URL, the CIA was replacing one of Notepad++'s components w/ another in order to run code on the user's system and stay hidden. Nothing in that links indicates that that replacement is done through any breach in security in Notepad++ itself, and AFAICT, they're using it merely as a good hiding place. The Notepad++ announcement fixes no particular bugs, but merely signs the code.

"It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway": https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060508-22/?p=31...

I'd also say that the CIA is probably not within the threat model of most companies. (If they had one.)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#425

Post by tomp »

devdas wrote: post #394
tomp wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We ought to protect data, not code. Code is more dangerous than data. Personally, I'd be most worried by someone getting a virus that hacks into other computers and encrypts them and/or wrecks the network. Both can be protected against, first by cold backups and second by resilient / disaster recovery network, but both would also severely affect the company for a few days, so I'd rather avoid them.

That's code destroying data. Losing data is bad for the business. A random box had software crashing? Just replace the box.

even setting up a new box might take one day of a productive person's time... unless, of course, if you standardise the dev setup... again many devs will complain, probably more than if you just remove local admin :D

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#426

Post by hvidgaard »

ben509 wrote: post #402
hvidgaard wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers can have local admin because it's expected that you can trust them. If they betray that thrust, then they lose that privilege, and depending on the nature of their work that might mean they cannot work. Bad for them, but surely it was written in their contract.

It's never actually in a contract, these are always policies since employment is at-will. But "they cannot work" is implying that person gets fired. I agree that serious breaches of security are a firable offense, because it's plainly a fact that people get fired over them. Generally, though, developers are fairly hard to replace and anyone who is hard to replace is equivalently hard to fire. So most security policie…

Some of the US might be at will employment, but it's not like that everywhere. In Denmark employment is not at will, but you can only fire someone if there is just cause. This particular scenario is in the security policy, and in my contract it's stated that I will follow that.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#427

Post by dredmorbius »

dredmorbius wrote: post #409
chinhodado wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's too cynical. I'm sure there are many places where things are mostly uneventful - or "boring" to some people.

Not in my experience. "Firing the responsible" may be an overly-strong comment -- putting pressure on the line rather than improving line management is the upshot of what I'm getting at. Though truly boring can be a good sign if it's the result of good planning, drilling, practices, and rewarding competence. If it's from complacency, failure to recognise problems, or the ability to push fault or failure off on others…

Ugh. I'd misread parent as a reply to my own comment.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#428

Post by drewmol »

jbob2000 wrote: post #271
sgustard wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if as a condition to accept a job offer you request a meeting with the CEO? Would the company refuse or do they value you enough to make it happen? I have never taken a job without talking to a top executive. You get a view of the company bigger than your team, you get to ask those business questions your manager may not know, and you have a head start on making good connections with upper management.

You can cross off any company over 1000 people from your list, if you had that as a requirement. My company is over 80,000 people, if our CEO met with each potential employee, he would never sleep. And also, I have to say, it's a bit arrogant to think that you deserve the attention of top executives. You can't expect them to prioritize your interview over all of the other activities their company does.

It's also a bit arrogent for a top executive to think a request for meeting/conversing with a top executive from a potential new employee in a subordinate role is a demonstration of arrogence. I don't suggest making it an absolute condition depending on the organization's size but for a job seeker wanting to evaluate the potential company just the reaction/responce to this question may serve as a useful litmus test

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#429

Post by C1sc0cat »

astura wrote: post #263
C1sc0cat wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Technical interviewers aren't going to know HR policies as they apply to other people - its HR's job to give them that information. I don't know how much time off a new hire might get, for example. But a helpful technical interviewer might say "oh we start off at five weeks a year" because that's what they started out with four years ago.

They ought to know the basic package on offer its not to hard for HR to provide 1 page crib sheet for al interviewers.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#430

Post by drewmol »

arikr wrote: post #367
Diederich wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, Google didn't answer my questions, people who were working at Google at the time did. (: As to the specific responses, I'd have to check my old notes, which I don't have handy at the moment. For "tier 1" companies, such as Google, common responses to "What brought you here" and "Why do you stay" are excellent comp, being able to work with many very talented people, and the ability to move around in the org…

> I've found the "what keeps you up at night" question has the most diverse responses. > In general, I've been pretty surprised at the amount of apparent honesty I get. It's hard to verify the responses, of course, but any time I get a response that's not completely positive or 'canned' in some way, it seems pretty legit. Could you please give a few high-level examples?

What keeps you up at night?

Reading commentary on the HN links I read during the day

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