8 ms·

I've done a decent amount of hiring over the years. When I ask the candidates if they have any questions, I expect them to interview me as a potential manager.

by athenot 11y ago

I've done a decent amount of hiring over the years. When I ask the candidates if they have any questions, I expect them to interview me as a potential manager. Everyone has their own set of criteria so there is not universal "good question to ask". Instead, you should figure out if you'd like to work with/for me? Do you feel you'd grow personally? Perhaps you're in a phase of life where you just need the money to recover from an unfortunate situation. Still, you must figure out what are the criteria you won't compromise on, and make sure you're getting that. For some, it's work schedule; for others, it's communication styles. Maybe you'll be driven insane by my cheesy puns and so you'd probably want to figure that out ahead of time. Ask me what I'll do to ensure you'll be respected as an individual on the team. When I'm a candidate, I like to ask how my failures will be dealt with. I will goof up at some point, the question is how is that managed. The larger point is there must be some discussion about potentially unpleasant situations.

overcast 11y ago
Can your company offer a challenging environment where I learn daily, and look forward to walking into your building? That's the biggest issue I find with most employment opportunities. 90% of the jobs aren't stimulating me enough, and I'm thinking about being somewhere else. Cheesy puns I can handle, are you adept at talking in movie references only?
- p4wnc6 11y ago
  I always liked Michael O. Church's way of phrasing this from his post on "the Haskell tax" (I think it's been taken down). Paraphrasing, he said something like, "most jobs require you to have work experience that is exponentially better than the work experience they will give out." That is a huge red flag for me. If a place is straining itself to "hire the best" and put candidates through the paces of a very difficult interview process, but then the actual job is some full-stack bullshit where your specialty or past experience is completely disregarded and you just do whatever random work happens to someone's misguided priority this week (which is almost every start-up job) it's just a bad, bad deal.
  - overcast 11y ago
    God damn, I am stealing that quote. In regards to those "hire the best", where the application process is more drawn out than top secret government clearance. Those just aren't for me. I'm not looking for top tier(I'm not), but I am looking for intellectual stimulation, and being involved in something that someone will actually be using. I get the majority of my satisfaction watching others use something I've created. My rant is over!
  - jared314 11y ago
    "It’s ridiculous, but most companies demand an astronomically higher quality of work experience than they give out." Why programmers can’t make any money: dimensionality and the Eternal Haskell Tax - Michael O. Church [1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20151221082425/https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/why-programmers-cant-make-any-money-dimensionality-and-the-eternal-haskell-tax/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151221082425/https://michaeloc...
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Developers need to get away from the idea that it is the companies responsibility for your career development. You are responsible for your own career development. The company has hired you to do a job and they pay you for doing that job. Do not expect anyone else to invest in you unless it is in their interest.
      - p4wnc6 11y ago
        That's like saying developers need to get away from the idea that it is the company's responsibility to pay them salary, offer retirement benefits, provide them shelter from the weather while working, etc. The company may not have any literal obligation to provide such things, and no one cares. If they don't provide such things, reject them, move on, life's too short.
        danieltillett 11y ago
        No it is the companies responsibility to pay you a salary (and any other conditions negotiated or legislated) in return for your labor. Of course companies invest some resources in career development as part of their salary package, but it is likely to be less than what is ideal for you as an individual since you can walk out the door at anytime. Every developer needs to take control of their own career development because they gain the most out any investment. This does not mean that you always take the highest salary, but you need to look at training and career development as an extra that is part of your overall salary package. In some cases the training offered to you is more valuable to you than it costs the company to provide and in other cases it is better to take the cash and invest it yourself. The important thing is take control of your own career development and don’t expect it to be handed to you by someone else.
- rconti 11y ago
  Is this a "you" problem, or a job problem? I've worked with quite a few people who initially impressed me with how much they knew, but then they peter out and disappear after 12-18 months, because they can't be bothered to actually do work. Too often people want to be paid to enjoy their pet projects and work on whether component they feel like working on; not maintain their stuff when they get bored of it, and so on. To be fair, you absolutely need to be able to learn and grow in a role to advance professionally.. But at the same time, some folks don't seem to understand that you're getting paid to use your existing knowledge to accomplish something you're already good at.
  - CuriouslyC 11y ago
    Not necessarily. It is entirely possible to have a job where your role is to figure out elegant solutions to hard problems. If you hire someone ostensibly for that role, and they end up spending most of their time refactoring the code of junior devs, writing tests and tweaking the build process, they have a legitimate grievance and are fully justified in leaving. On the other hand, if someone got hired on for a typical mid-level developer/engineer position without any promises of a research/advanced engineering focus, they need to man up and do their job.
    - lazaroclapp 11y ago
      > Not necessarily. It is entirely possible to have a job where your role is to figure out elegant solutions to hard problems. Sure. But often when that's the case your title will say something closer to "Principal Researcher", rather than "Software Developer Engineer". Don't get me wrong, a good thing about a job in engineering is that figuring elegant solutions to hard problems is a significant part of what you do there. Also, you can definitely optimize for that being a larger part of your time, if you aim for that when choosing where to work. However, the jobs for which that is the only function you are employed to fill, and where you are expected to delegate maintenance of your elegant solution to someone else, are exceedingly rare. That's why the academic job market in CS is so much harsher (including industry research labs) than the software development job market. And, for the record, research work does end up involving either some amount of grunt work or some amount of management work at every place and level I have seen so far (universities, industry research labs, etc)
x0x0 11y ago
I like that question (how will failures be dealt with) Other questions I like: * what are you looking for this position to do? * what does success in this role look like? I do data science so success is a little harder to define than in a software engineering role. It's a warning sign when employers want you to come in and spread some machine machine learning on things to generate profits in a business that so far is not doing so, or when you hear different descriptions of the role from most interviewers. It makes me believe that the business doesn't have consensus on what they want someone to do, and therefore, I will have a very hard time succeeding.
coroutines 11y ago
I am a junior dev. It is hard for me to get in that dating mentality that I should be testing to see if my interviewer and I are simpatico. I feel a lot of pressure to fill in the blanks on what I want to know without asking, so I don't seem like I'm still deciding if I want to work there. I know that sounds ridiculous. The only time I do well is when interviewing for roles in faraway Australia because I feel like I have no chance of getting picked up. Or maybe Australians are just great at no-bullshit interviews and put me at ease like talking to a friend? Confusing.
- willwagner 11y ago
  I think you are selling yourself short by not asking questions particularly as a junior dev. Depending on the role, people are hiring you for not only your current skills but your potential to grow. Write some questions down in advance - no one is going to ding you for having a cheat sheet for asking questions. Here's some questions I'd ask: - what sort of training or growth opportunities do you have? - do you offer any aid for continued education or online courses? What about conferences? - do you have a buddy or mentor program to help me get moving quickly? - Are there any books or resources you recommend so I can hit the ground running? - If I got the role, what would make you feel you made a great hire in 6 months or a year?
  - coroutines 11y ago
    I thank you for your kind and very welcome advice. These are great questions - I think I probably have trouble locating more junior dev opportunities. I always do research on the history of a company but because of turnover it doesn't score me any piñatas to know where they started if the interviewer can't engage with the stuff I'm mentioning. :(
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Just doing the research puts you in the top 20% of candidates. I have lost track of over the years how many time I have got the answer “nothing” to the question what do you know about the company. I personally find it amazing that people don’t make the most basic investigations into the place they are wanting to spend most of their waking hours. It is like waking into a car dealership and saying to the first salesman you meet “I have $30,000 - just sell me any car as I don’t care.”
brown9-2 11y ago
How much time do you leave aside in your interview for the candidate to interview you?
- athenot 11y ago
  It's not so much time as it is getting all the important questions answered. If we're meeting face-to-face, there has already been an investment in each other so there's no point cutting it short. But in practice, it rarely lasts more than 10-15 min. Another way to look at it, is I want to project reasonable expectations in their mind. Mismatched expectations is the root of many issues down the road...

by athenot 11y ago

overcast 11y ago

Can your company offer a challenging environment where I learn daily, and look forward to walking into your building? That's the biggest issue I find with most employment opportunities. 90% of the jobs aren't stimulating me enough, and I'm thinking about being somewhere else. Cheesy puns I can handle, are you adept at talking in movie references only?

p4wnc6 11y ago
I always liked Michael O. Church's way of phrasing this from his post on "the Haskell tax" (I think it's been taken down). Paraphrasing, he said something like, "most jobs require you to have work experience that is exponentially better than the work experience they will give out." That is a huge red flag for me. If a place is straining itself to "hire the best" and put candidates through the paces of a very difficult interview process, but then the actual job is some full-stack bullshit where your specialty or past experience is completely disregarded and you just do whatever random work happens to someone's misguided priority this week (which is almost every start-up job) it's just a bad, bad deal.
- overcast 11y ago
  God damn, I am stealing that quote. In regards to those "hire the best", where the application process is more drawn out than top secret government clearance. Those just aren't for me. I'm not looking for top tier(I'm not), but I am looking for intellectual stimulation, and being involved in something that someone will actually be using. I get the majority of my satisfaction watching others use something I've created. My rant is over!
- jared314 11y ago
  "It’s ridiculous, but most companies demand an astronomically higher quality of work experience than they give out." Why programmers can’t make any money: dimensionality and the Eternal Haskell Tax - Michael O. Church [1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20151221082425/https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/why-programmers-cant-make-any-money-dimensionality-and-the-eternal-haskell-tax/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151221082425/https://michaeloc...
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Developers need to get away from the idea that it is the companies responsibility for your career development. You are responsible for your own career development. The company has hired you to do a job and they pay you for doing that job. Do not expect anyone else to invest in you unless it is in their interest.
    - p4wnc6 11y ago
      That's like saying developers need to get away from the idea that it is the company's responsibility to pay them salary, offer retirement benefits, provide them shelter from the weather while working, etc. The company may not have any literal obligation to provide such things, and no one cares. If they don't provide such things, reject them, move on, life's too short.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        No it is the companies responsibility to pay you a salary (and any other conditions negotiated or legislated) in return for your labor. Of course companies invest some resources in career development as part of their salary package, but it is likely to be less than what is ideal for you as an individual since you can walk out the door at anytime. Every developer needs to take control of their own career development because they gain the most out any investment. This does not mean that you always take the highest salary, but you need to look at training and career development as an extra that is part of your overall salary package. In some cases the training offered to you is more valuable to you than it costs the company to provide and in other cases it is better to take the cash and invest it yourself. The important thing is take control of your own career development and don’t expect it to be handed to you by someone else.
rconti 11y ago
Is this a "you" problem, or a job problem? I've worked with quite a few people who initially impressed me with how much they knew, but then they peter out and disappear after 12-18 months, because they can't be bothered to actually do work. Too often people want to be paid to enjoy their pet projects and work on whether component they feel like working on; not maintain their stuff when they get bored of it, and so on. To be fair, you absolutely need to be able to learn and grow in a role to advance professionally.. But at the same time, some folks don't seem to understand that you're getting paid to use your existing knowledge to accomplish something you're already good at.
- CuriouslyC 11y ago
  Not necessarily. It is entirely possible to have a job where your role is to figure out elegant solutions to hard problems. If you hire someone ostensibly for that role, and they end up spending most of their time refactoring the code of junior devs, writing tests and tweaking the build process, they have a legitimate grievance and are fully justified in leaving. On the other hand, if someone got hired on for a typical mid-level developer/engineer position without any promises of a research/advanced engineering focus, they need to man up and do their job.
  - lazaroclapp 11y ago
    > Not necessarily. It is entirely possible to have a job where your role is to figure out elegant solutions to hard problems. Sure. But often when that's the case your title will say something closer to "Principal Researcher", rather than "Software Developer Engineer". Don't get me wrong, a good thing about a job in engineering is that figuring elegant solutions to hard problems is a significant part of what you do there. Also, you can definitely optimize for that being a larger part of your time, if you aim for that when choosing where to work. However, the jobs for which that is the only function you are employed to fill, and where you are expected to delegate maintenance of your elegant solution to someone else, are exceedingly rare. That's why the academic job market in CS is so much harsher (including industry research labs) than the software development job market. And, for the record, research work does end up involving either some amount of grunt work or some amount of management work at every place and level I have seen so far (universities, industry research labs, etc)

x0x0 11y ago

I like that question (how will failures be dealt with) Other questions I like: * what are you looking for this position to do? * what does success in this role look like? I do data science so success is a little harder to define than in a software engineering role. It's a warning sign when employers want you to come in and spread some machine machine learning on things to generate profits in a business that so far is not doing so, or when you hear different descriptions of the role from most interviewers. It makes me believe that the business doesn't have consensus on what they want someone to do, and therefore, I will have a very hard time succeeding.

coroutines 11y ago

I am a junior dev. It is hard for me to get in that dating mentality that I should be testing to see if my interviewer and I are simpatico. I feel a lot of pressure to fill in the blanks on what I want to know without asking, so I don't seem like I'm still deciding if I want to work there. I know that sounds ridiculous. The only time I do well is when interviewing for roles in faraway Australia because I feel like I have no chance of getting picked up. Or maybe Australians are just great at no-bullshit interviews and put me at ease like talking to a friend? Confusing.

willwagner 11y ago
I think you are selling yourself short by not asking questions particularly as a junior dev. Depending on the role, people are hiring you for not only your current skills but your potential to grow. Write some questions down in advance - no one is going to ding you for having a cheat sheet for asking questions. Here's some questions I'd ask: - what sort of training or growth opportunities do you have? - do you offer any aid for continued education or online courses? What about conferences? - do you have a buddy or mentor program to help me get moving quickly? - Are there any books or resources you recommend so I can hit the ground running? - If I got the role, what would make you feel you made a great hire in 6 months or a year?
- coroutines 11y ago
  I thank you for your kind and very welcome advice. These are great questions - I think I probably have trouble locating more junior dev opportunities. I always do research on the history of a company but because of turnover it doesn't score me any piñatas to know where they started if the interviewer can't engage with the stuff I'm mentioning. :(
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Just doing the research puts you in the top 20% of candidates. I have lost track of over the years how many time I have got the answer “nothing” to the question what do you know about the company. I personally find it amazing that people don’t make the most basic investigations into the place they are wanting to spend most of their waking hours. It is like waking into a car dealership and saying to the first salesman you meet “I have $30,000 - just sell me any car as I don’t care.”

brown9-2 11y ago

How much time do you leave aside in your interview for the candidate to interview you?

athenot 11y ago
It's not so much time as it is getting all the important questions answered. If we're meeting face-to-face, there has already been an investment in each other so there's no point cutting it short. But in practice, it rarely lasts more than 10-15 min. Another way to look at it, is I want to project reasonable expectations in their mind. Mismatched expectations is the root of many issues down the road...