4 ms·

> I was fooled into joining because I met with a data scientist and an "experienced web developer" without actually looking at their code. Is it typical to be

> I was fooled into joining because I met with a data scientist and an "experienced web developer" without actually looking at their code. Is it typical to be able to look at a company's code before signing up? After having a similar experience, I wish I could make that a standard part of my interviewing process. (Brief backstory: I would never in 1000 years have taken my first development job if I had seen the code first, but HR and the carefully selected engineers who could tell positive stories gave me a false impression of what was going on.)

tluyben2 8y ago
When we first identify partners or clients, the interview is not unlike a job interview, but one where both parties are the applicant and interviewer. I cannot count the times when someone from the other side tells me about best practices in coding, CI, covering tests and version management, after which, on inspection of their codebases, they actually do none of these things. The guy at the meeting stage was a higher up tech manager/C(TI)O usually who read all the books and articles but the team is not following those same practices because of various reasons (usually intense time pressure). We now have to demand to see the codebases we are going to work with/against first. Even if we only touch the API in some cases; if the API is built on quicksand then we risk spending a lot of time building something that is not viable but that might not be immediately clear.
jventura 8y ago
> Is it typical to be able to look at a company's code before signing up? I guess it is not typical, but at one company I interviewed for I had a day for implementing something (a small feature and some unittests) which allowed me to check their codebase. I liked what I saw and worked there for some months.

4 ms·

> I was fooled into joining because I met with a data scientist and an "experienced web developer" without actually looking at their code. Is it typical to be

by odyssey7 8y ago

tluyben2 8y ago
When we first identify partners or clients, the interview is not unlike a job interview, but one where both parties are the applicant and interviewer. I cannot count the times when someone from the other side tells me about best practices in coding, CI, covering tests and version management, after which, on inspection of their codebases, they actually do none of these things. The guy at the meeting stage was a higher up tech manager/C(TI)O usually who read all the books and articles but the team is not following those same practices because of various reasons (usually intense time pressure). We now have to demand to see the codebases we are going to work with/against first. Even if we only touch the API in some cases; if the API is built on quicksand then we risk spending a lot of time building something that is not viable but that might not be immediately clear.
jventura 8y ago
> Is it typical to be able to look at a company's code before signing up? I guess it is not typical, but at one company I interviewed for I had a day for implementing something (a small feature and some unittests) which allowed me to check their codebase. I liked what I saw and worked there for some months.