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I like to ask things like, "If you could change one thing about the company engineering practices, what would it be?" The answers can be telling. If they give

I like to ask things like, "If you could change one thing about the company engineering practices, what would it be?" The answers can be telling. If they give an answer like, like, "I wish we would adopt $random_programming_language." That, to me, indicates a fairly healthy organization, because this is just one guy's technical preference. If they give an answer like, "We need need to stop thrashing", that gives a different picture. If they say, "Nothing at all", you need to run, because they can't think critically about themselves. If they use pronouns like "them" and "they" instead of "us" and "we", then the interviewer doesn't feel like part of the team.

mikestew 10y ago
To follow up on the potential acceptable answers vs. bad answers: 1. "I wish we'd use git instead of SVN" vs. "I wish we'd use source control instead of backing up .zip files of the tree." 2. "I wish we used Jenkins instead of $OTHER_BUILD_TOOL." vs. "I wish we'd set up a build server instead of pulling bits of a random dev's machine." 3. "I wish we we'd use OCMock to eliminate dependencies in our tests." vs. "I wish we were given time to write unit tests." Sure, you might think you're the one to get them fixed up with what they need. But there are good reasons that things are they way they are, and it's not always because the ICs are lazy.