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Interview questions to ask your interviewer

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Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#71

Post by pseudoramble »

Steltek wrote: post #25
ipaddr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've avoided jobs that are Mac only. Life is too short.

Even if you're allowed to use Linux, you still end up getting a Mac to support your coworkers. I suppose I can be grateful that Docker Desktop is slowly fading away. Sadly Homebrew is too essential to die and the ${g} prefix remains for random commands.

> I suppose I can be grateful that Docker Desktop is slowly fading away.

May I ask why you're grateful? I'm pretty inexperienced with Docker/Kubernetes/containers in general. So there's probably a good reason I'm unaware of.

Docker Desktop was nice for me to run the one or two basic things I needed. I've moved away due to the licensing changes, but I'd like to understand why it was a problem.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#72

Post by Buttons840 »

mabbo wrote: post #52

I recently did a round of interviews with a few companies, and I came up with a list of fun questions for the interviewer, mostly based on my own gripes with my then-employer or things other companies were doing that I didn't like. I caught everyone I asked these to off-guard. > "Every company gets criticized. What's a piece of criticism your company has received that you felt wasn't really accurate? What about the o…

> "What are the company's non-compete rules? If I wanted to make and sell an app in my spare time, is that allowed? What isn't allowed?"

I would not be surprised at all if the people interviewing me gave a nice answer and then on day one I'm asked to sign a contract that doesn't match what they said.

Ask if you can see the employment contract before accepting an offer.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#73

Post by jbluepolarbear »

the-dude wrote: post #16
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #3

I would add Am I allowed to have side projects that I own? Am I allowed to contribute to open source from work? ie bugfixes for libraries we use. How many meetings are there in an average month? Does your insurance cover my preferred doctors? (obviously more of an email question) How strict are the requirements in whatever tracking software we use (jira,rally, etc) How many required programs are there? Outlook? Slack…

% Why did the person before me leave? They just lied to me. That was a painful year.

This happened to me in 2020. Interviewed and they said that the previous person left for a more creative role. I was told I’d be lead and have the authority to steer the product to get them ready to release games in 6-12 months. They lied about everything, I was told day one that I wasn’t lead, that I wasn’t gonna be doing the job I was hired for, and that I’d have to get their broken game engine (that they didn’t own) in a state to ship games. It was the longest 6 months of my life.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#74

Post by blueside »

technion wrote: post #68
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

I'll never forget a guy trying to headhunt with: "Do you see this watch? Genuine rollex. Do you know what it feels like to own one? Probably not, because you don't work for me yet, so you can't afford one".

Was he sent by Mitch and Murray?

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#75

Post by mcny »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #34
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.

This is probably just a personal thing, but that just defines which areas of our industry I probably don't want to work in. And WSL isn't helpful, because the goal for me isn't "run Linux", but "don't run Windows"; WSL won't save you from MS forcing updates down your throat, changing your browser to edge, spying on you, and sticking ads all over the system.

> WSL won't save you from MS forcing updates down your throat

There was only one corporate laptop running windows 10 I've encountered during the pandemic that does not use policy to disable automatic updates and that is Microsoft. In my experience, everyone who pays for Windows Enterprise blocks automatic updates.

I think Windows Home still can't into Hyper-V and therefore you have to go through hoops to install WSL 2 and docker, right?

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#76

Post by rjzzleep »

Buttons840 wrote: post #72
mabbo wrote: post #52

I recently did a round of interviews with a few companies, and I came up with a list of fun questions for the interviewer, mostly based on my own gripes with my then-employer or things other companies were doing that I didn't like. I caught everyone I asked these to off-guard. > "Every company gets criticized. What's a piece of criticism your company has received that you felt wasn't really accurate? What about the o…

> "What are the company's non-compete rules? If I wanted to make and sell an app in my spare time, is that allowed? What isn't allowed?" I would not be surprised at all if the people interviewing me gave a nice answer and then on day one I'm asked to sign a contract that doesn't match what they said. Ask if you can see the employment contract before accepting an offer.

> Ask if you can see the employment contract before accepting an offer.

I'm a bit puzzled by this answer. What's wrong with:

"I read the contract and I don't like the terms sorry"

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#77

Post by tragictrash »

jbluepolarbear wrote: post #69
tragictrash wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Tell me you don’t use WSL without telling me you don’t use WSL. I use WSL everyday and it’s no different than using native Linux. What’s so terrible? It’s easy to setup and easy to add to windows terminal.

File system performance sucks. No fuse support. No direct hardware access. I've experienced stability issues with it. Don't get me started on the networking or custom init put in by Microsoft. Systemctl calls don't work.

It is most definitely not just like regular Linux.

I actually used it pretty extensively for years before I figured out it was causing more friction than it was worth. It's convenient, I'll give you that, but again, it's objectively worse than the other tools available. You should try them.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#78

Post by passerby1 »

rjzzleep wrote: post #76
Buttons840 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What are the company's non-compete rules? If I wanted to make and sell an app in my spare time, is that allowed? What isn't allowed?" I would not be surprised at all if the people interviewing me gave a nice answer and then on day one I'm asked to sign a contract that doesn't match what they said. Ask if you can see the employment contract before accepting an offer.

> Ask if you can see the employment contract before accepting an offer. I'm a bit puzzled by this answer. What's wrong with: "I read the contract and I don't like the terms sorry"

Nothing. Time is wasted.

However I doubt it's easy to see a contract before signing offer.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#79

Post by ultrasaurus »

fzzt wrote: post #62

A lot of these questions touch on important topics, but I think there are too many of them and they are far too specific - to the point where you might be inadvertently signaling some kind of unreasonable inflexibility ("you better be using a particular bug tracking system or else I'm out!"). I'd suggest generalizing and combining many of these. Asking the interviewer to walk you through the development process can b…

Yeah they kind of run the gamut from "you can look this up on LinkedIn" (company size) to ones I'd defer to the CFO "Any plans to sell?" where I doubt you'd get an answer.

One thing I'd add -- don't be afraid to ask the company recruiter questions too. They should know about the training/conference budget, dress code, etc. That'll make better use of your Q&A time with the hiring manager.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#80

Post by alexashka »

Sigh, could you possibly ask anything to make someone want to hire you more and not less?

I'm sure recruiters will say yes. Go ahead and ask anyone old enough to have interviewed people for a decade or two and see what they say.

The answer is no - just be good, be pleasant, be on time. That's all anyone's looking for.

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