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Interview questions to ask your interviewer

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Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#41

Post by sugaroverflow »

jll29 wrote: post #38

Two questions to ask your interviewer: 1. What - from all the things you have accomplished while working here so far - are you most proud of? 2. What did they do for the last social outing? (Look for their face reaction as they answer the two questions. If they look surprised, or don't have a good answer, you may want to look elsewhere.) And, if not already covered in the interview (which they really should): - How t…

I love these! Adding some follow-up questions:

To better understand the attrition rate:

- Who is the team made up of - internal transfers or external hires?

- How long have the current team members been on the team?

- When was the last time someone on the team was promoted?

Delving into career trajectory and your questions about training:

- What does the path look like in 3, 5, 7 years for this role?

- What leadership opportunities does this role lead to?

- Will my professional goals be linked to the company's goals?

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#42

Post by toss1 »

I recently saw a great question that is generally applicable to all types of job:

"When you think about the person in this role doing really outstanding work in the future, say, one and five years from now, what does that look like to you?"

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#43

Post by daniel_iversen »

Important is to curate your own list based on the company and role. In the posted article there wasn't many cultural questions and I'd certainly add those (why do people typically enjoy working here? examples of tough situations the team or company has been through? What are the company values (does the interviewer even know?) and how are they important or not day to day, etc...) also probe on your managers management style (or you might end up hating the job) as well as ask to speak with future colleagues (in everyone's interest). Be prepared to be quizzed on why you're asking your questions (after all there has to be thought behind it). And for interviewers - many time the free dialog and understanding what's top of mind for your candidate is as important than the scripted questions. In fact I start off interviews saying we both need to get to know eachother in this session, and if there are any burning questions or things they'd like to know already? (that way I can see how much they've thought about the role and what's in their mind before they've had a chance to analyse the company or myself too much and maybe get a better picture of the candidate).. oh and my favorite question to the interviewer (even if it's me) is "If you had a magic wand and could improve one thing about the company what would it be?" - hard not to get some interesting insight into the company with that one.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#44

Post by tragictrash »

blahyawnblah wrote: post #36
mrtranscendence wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my former coworkers who's an absolutely huge Apple guy recently left for another job. When I asked him whether he could use a Mac he told me he didn't know and hadn't asked ... he must've really wanted that job. Or really hated his old one. I'd take a job that let me use Linux, but I too am a Mac guy at heart. I had a short stint on Windows not long ago and hated it. Where I work now they'll give developers Ma…

Windows with WSL2 is great. Have you tried that? VSCode can run from WSL2 and have access to its file system

Tell me you don't use Linux without telling me you don't use linux

Wsl is pretty terrible in my experience. your better off using a vm you manage yourself. Every vendor has shared folders. Each one can use a x server to display programs in your windows window manager.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#45

Post by tragictrash »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #30
jaaron wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really depends on the sort of "windows-only" jobs you're thinking of. My startup is mostly Windows, but that's because we're doing AAA game development and still have some tooling that is Windows only at this stage. I find that with WSL2, I can do everything I need. A fair bit of my day is spent in emacs.

Really depends on the sort of "windows-only" jobs you're thinking of. I was hoping you were going to follow that up by saying you're working on a robot to clean vertical glass.

Underrated comment of the century

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#46

Post by comprev » 

  - Can you give me an example of when a project took a major turn in another direction, and what was the cause of this change?
  - (if applicable) How many heads is this role expected to support?
  - What was the team's last achievement recognised by the whole company?
  - When was the last time the team performed a disaster recovery exercise?
  - Can you explain the process of "idea to feature retirement" starting with the request from the product owner?
I've got hundreds of questions from interviews over the years.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#47

Post by time_to_smile »

One general rule I've come up with is when your interviewer mentions values of the company, ask for examples.

For example, it's common for a senior manager to say something like:

"We value input from all of our employees, ideas can come from anyplace"

For this just follow up with a sincere:

"That's something I really value too, can you give me an example of when someone who was not in a leadership role proposed a solution that influenced a major decision?"

I've found this surprisingly effective at finding out which values are real and which are bullshit. When it's real, you'll get answers like "certainly, why just last quarter Jen in customer support noticed..." and when it's BS you can immediately tell because the interviewer will freeze completely.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#48

Post by fartcannon »

MattGaiser wrote: post #19
fartcannon wrote: post #18

I had a really cool job opportunity to implement cool technology in a novel field but I rejected it for two reasons: 1) My immediate manager was dressed in incredibly expensive clothing in the interview, 2) He said we didn't need Linux, we could afford to use Mac. Barf

Was the pay terrible too? As a Mac is a lot cheaper than a developer.

It was pretty good for the field, which is not software development.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#49

Post by autarch »

I've been maintaining my own list of questions for quite a few years. I added some based on this post and the discussion here on HN.

Here's the full list - https://gist.github.com/autarch/6e7e25e85db62a359f91aa090033...

There's a few that are very specific to my future travel plans and my height, but the vast majority are potentially useful for everyone.

Note that my goal is to _get answers to these questions during the interview process_. I do not expect to sit there and ask _all of them_ in a single interview. In my experience, quite a bit of this comes about naturally. For example, I'll often find out about their dev process, tech stack, tools, and so on from the technical questions they ask me, and the conversations those questions lead to.

But my goal would be to have satisfying answers to all of these by the time I'm making my decisions about whether to accept an offer.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#50

Post by ygjb »

tragictrash wrote: post #44
blahyawnblah wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows with WSL2 is great. Have you tried that? VSCode can run from WSL2 and have access to its file system

Tell me you don't use Linux without telling me you don't use linux Wsl is pretty terrible in my experience. your better off using a vm you manage yourself. Every vendor has shared folders. Each one can use a x server to display programs in your windows window manager.

Oh please. Tell me you are a Linux zealot without telling me you are a Linux zealot. Its a tool in the toolbox. I use Linux everyday on servers at work, two desktops at home, and servers for my partners businesses.

My main personal notebook is a windows device w/WSL and my main work notebook is a MacOS device, because at the end of the day, I need my computer's to just work, painlessly.

WSL is great for alot of Linux userspace stuff and is a fantastic CLI for interacting with and managing remote servers, alongside the ease of Windows. Of course it's not as performance, and had some edges, but I happily accept the trade-offs due to great driver support and the flexibility to run almost any software on one device.

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