Ask HN: What do you ask a potential employer

What questions do you ask a potential employer during a developer interview? In particular, I'm interested in what you ask to see if you're walking into a poorly-run organization or a bad codebase. I'm also interested in what you ask in terms of perks and benefits.

Some questions I ask:

What are the best, worst, and most surprising things about working here?

What IDEs are used here? (Preferred answer: Something from JetBrains, Reasonable people can disagree answer: vim/emacs/eclipse, Warning sign answer: Notepad)

Would I be allowed to work on outside projects?

How is off-hours support handled?

This seems like the sort of thing that would have been discussed many times here, but I couldn't find it using hnsearch or google. If you have the search-fu, teach me your ways.

If you're considering a long-term gig, ask about the career path.

This is really tough because, as someone who has sat on both sides of the table, the good organizations will be honest and the bad ones will either omit or massage their answers to remain attractive-looking.

That's not to say that your questions will not help you attain more information, but in some cases it is impossible. In the same way that companies with good intentions can make bad hires, candidates can accept offers from employers that are a bad fit for them, even though they asked the right questions.

My recommendation, in addition to the good ones here, is that if you have a good read on personalities, try to identify the person (assuming you have multiple interviewers) that feels the most open, honest, and genuine to you and direct your most probing questions to them. If someone feels too slick, marketing-like, or just seems to drink a little too much of their own Kool-aid, their answers are less valuable. Put more weight on the answers of those who don't paint a 100% rosy picture.

I've interviewed maybe 5 times in the last 2 years, and even at seemingly well-run companies I've yet to get an answer to this question. "We're a flat organization," "We don't have anything formal," "Well, we're growing, so something will open up," etc. This is one of the major reasons I'm still freelancing. No only am I earning more, but there is way more potential.

In addition to the usual "What's you work flow?" type questions I like to ask the following:

I tell them that I always like to be learning new things. "Given my resume, what new things I could expect to learn at your company?" This has the unexpected side effect of having them "sell you" on working for their company - flipping the usual job seeker dynamic (you trying to "sell" yourself to them).

I like ask them what problems they are working on to see how I can bring my talents to bear - I don't want to work someplace where I can't deliver real value.