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Interview questions to ask your interviewer

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Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#81

Post by AlexCoventry »

jbluepolarbear wrote: post #73
the-dude wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

% 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 ow…

If you don't mind talking about it, I'd be curious to know why you stuck around.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#83

Post by rad_gruchalski »

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.

Signing means accepting an offer. To sign, one needs to get a copy of a contract. So one always sees a contract before signing, no?

Let’s look at it from a different angle. One does not file a resignation before receiving a countersigned copy from the company.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#84

Post by Buttons840 »

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"

Usually there's a surprise contract waiting for day one of a job, after you've left your other job. Yes, you can still walk away, but it's better to review that contract sooner.

If you don't ask to see the contract, it will almost certainly be a day one surprise. And even if you do ask, the legal department, who neither you nor the people interviewing you frequently communicate with, might still have some surprises in store.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#85

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

and there I was, thinking this was going to be a list that a guest on Fresh Air (NPR/USA) ought to ask Terri Gross, to break the usual one-way flow of questions.

Ah, HN, where "interview" always means "job interview" and "dependency stack" always means "for your web project".

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#86

Post by ohazi »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #83
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.

Signing means accepting an offer. To sign, one needs to get a copy of a contract. So one always sees a contract before signing, no? Let’s look at it from a different angle. One does not file a resignation before receiving a countersigned copy from the company.

It's always a moving target.

To continue working at a company, you are usually expected to sign every piece of paper that they put in front of you throughout your tenure. If you don't, the consequences could range from absolutely nothing, to being pestered every six months, to being kept off a project or not promoted, to being fired.

If at some point you become popular or are seen as critical, you may be able to spend some of your political capital to get around signing some of the papers that you don't particularly want to sign, but this doesn't always work, and you can't always get away with this indefinitely.

An amendment to your offer of employment that tries to prevent you from moonlighting could come after your first day, or after your third month. They get to choose the timing, and the more unscrupulous will absolutely use this to their advantage. They won't give it to you after the first day or week, so you don't just walk -- they'll wait until you've settled in and are more likely to concede in frustration.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#88

Post by Steltek »

pseudoramble wrote: post #71
Steltek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

MacOS Docker had performance problems and odd limitations because it was really a Linux VM under the hood (Darwin can't run containers) and any host passthru stuff needed that additional hypervisor translation, which wasn't always perfect either.

People raising bugs against "production" wouldn't tell you that they found it their Macbook so you'd go on a wild goose chase thinking it was a real issue and not simply MacOS sucking.

Alternately, you'd write a script to do something (flash hardware, etc) and it wouldn't work because Certified Real UNIX(tm) doesn't have /proc or /sys. Now you're asked to port the script to Mac, which depending on the task might be wildly more difficult, but if you don't willingly bash your head against Apple's hatred for low level hacking, you're not a team player or something.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#89

Post by epolanski »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #64
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

Wsl 1/2 are quite painful, but the issue is also windows, you might get a wsl3 that is good and it would still be surrounded by windows, i would still tolerate windows but Microsoft isn't offering windows to you as a product that gets out of the way, doesn't touch defaults, doesn't show you ads on the desktop etc, it's using a software to push on you other stuff, so nein So there are many companies and many projects…

I have exactly the opposite idea. I hate Mac and WSL2 is perfect for development. I've never seen an ad in windows 10 as well.

Re: Interview questions to ask your interviewer

#90

Post by epolanski »

twayt wrote: post #66

A lot of these questions don’t really matter and are a waste of time. The only real questions to ask imo are: 1. How is performance/promos determined? 2. How are peoples interpersonal skills in other teams? In the first question, look out for cues regarding inefficiencies or resentment about the performance process. In the second one, the interviewer can discuss whether people are cooperative or assholes without bein…

Your questions don't matter as well, I couldn't care less about those. The only real questions that matter are those that matter to you (the applicant).

E.g. I always ask about working hours, their flexibility and make sure the counterparty understands well I don't crunch or overtime unless on rarest occasions. Because those are the things that matter to me.

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