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Questions to ask at the end of a technical interview (2017)

211 points by wheresvic3 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
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codingdave 6y ago
These questions do matter, but the answers are not as important as "Why?" Answers to such question will change as a product and company evolves. But how did they get to those answers? What strategy drives their decisions? In short, why do they use what they use, and do what they do. You should ask how they evolved to this point, what struggles they are having, and where they may be headed in the future. Those answers will be far more insightful into who you are working with, and whether you want to work in their environment.
- jameshart 6y ago
  As a candidate, be very careful asking interviewers ‘why’ the company does something in a particular way. ‘Why?’ Is an aggressive question. When you hit your interviewer with a ‘why?’ Question, you put them on the defensive. They have to justify that their company isn’t dumb, that there are good reasons for doing it that way, that there even is a rational reason why - when they may not know the reasons, they personally might even disagree, and the fact is there may not be a good reason. And while you might think ‘I really want to know that sort of thing if I’m going to be working there’, the downside is that to get that answer, you have leave your interviewer with a bad taste in their mouth - ‘that candidate seemed to be judging us for how we picked our front-end stack, and I felt slightly embarrassed defending that we still use angular even though I personally have been fighting a running battle to move to a new stack for a year now’ And honestly, those are definitely not red flags right there. If your requirements for joining a tech org are that you expect them to have made all the same decisions you would have made if you were in their shoes, without error, then a) your bar might be a little high and b) what the hell do they need you for, they’ve already got a team that can do everything you could bring to the table.
  - Swizec 6y ago
    Why questions are great because they show you think about things beyond just the surface code typist level. You can go one step further and engage in proper discussion and offer suggestions and things they can try to improve whatever situation they’re in that leads you to ask a Why question. Show that you bring solutions to the table, not just a pair of hands. And if you fear why is too aggressive, use “how come” instead. Always try to leave your interviewer feeling “Wow I really want that guy to come solve my problems” and “Fuck that was a good suggestion I wanna try that”
  - vageli 6y ago
    > As a candidate, be very careful asking interviewers ‘why’ the company does something in a particular way. > ‘Why?’ Is an aggressive question. I agree that "why" can be interpreted negatively but there are definitely more disarming ways to probe. I personally would say (and have asked) something like, "Can you tell me more about the process or framework used to aid in decision making about technologies introduced in the organization and how it played out in your decision to use X?"
  - alxlaz 6y ago
    > what the hell do they need you for, they’ve already got a team that can do everything you could bring to the table. If that's the case, then why are they conducting an interview in the first place? I guess an argument can be made that it's counterproductive to ask "aggressive" questions if you want to be hired. But then again, candidates will likely be asked "why" they did something dozens of times in a whiteboard interview. If someone can't take 10% of the pressure they expose their candidates to, maybe they shouldn't be doing interviews in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to answer any "why" question that I'm in a position to answer, and I always have, whenever a candidate has asked me one. I'm wary about taking the mere act of asking a question as a good sign (or a bad one) in the age of "Cracking to Coding Interview" and whatnot but it's the kind of question that leads to useful discussion. Sure, we weren't right about a lot of choices we made, and sometimes, in hindsight, they were flat out indefensible, and we had to deal with the consequences. That's part of software development everywhere. If they ask that because their bar is too high and they don't want to join a team that makes more than N wrong choices a year, fine, it's their bar, they get to set it wherever they like. If they ask that just because they think questioning accepted practice is a good idea, that's actually great. Lots of companies end up making one bad mistake after another just because no one stops to ask why. And lots of narcissistic team leads and managers don't want that kind of attitude on their teams -- if that leads to not being hired, that's a bullet dodged, not a wasted opportunity. On the other hand a question like this is a great opportunity to show them that we're good at both leveraging our assets and at owning up to our mistakes. That's definitely a quality I'd be looking for in a prospective team. Edit: oh yeah, maybe some more general context is appropriate here. One thing that took me a while to learn is that not every interview you don't ace is a failure. I don't mean that in some personal development hoodoo way, like the way to success is riddled with failures or whatever. I mean, literally, that there are interviews which you don't ace, and that's a good thing, because if you'd aced it, you would have hated working there, or it would have been really bad for your career, or both. It's one thing if you don't get hired because you lack the knowledge and skills -- okay, you can work on that and try again later. But if you get passed because you asked the wrong question (and that question wasn't offensive or anything, obviously), or because you did not know that specific thing that a lead dev is really proud about knowing, that's a blessing in disguise.
buddyp450 6y ago
There's one important question I haven't seen on here that's saved me on more than one occasion. "Are there any concerns you may have that I can address that may lead you to believe I'm not the right candidate?" I've been able to address: lack of previous experience, lack of a degree, time in between jobs, time spent at the last job, all thanks to this question.
- cheez 6y ago
  That is a fantastic question.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  Most of the time, if the interviewer formed these concerns, you’re just opening yourself up to give them space for confirmation bias to take over. What might have been one bad interview session out of six, which might not rule you out, now becomes a crater of destruction that will absolutely be a big talking point in the debrief and feedback. Additionally it comes off as insecure. Like you can’t tolerate the idea that you might actually have made mistakes or lacked skills or fluffed your resume or communicated badly, and you deserve a chance to debate your way out of it. Finally it also seems like fishing for negative feedback you can disagree with later. You likely won’t get significant feedback after the interviews are over since companies don’t reveal it for legal reasons, so you’re trying to get interviewers off-guard to get that feedback and later act like it’s unfair. As an interviewer I would strictly reply that I need to write down my notes from the interview, review and analyze them, and compare notes in the debrief session before I will develop any type of feedback, positive or negative. The interview itself is a place for information exchange, and trying to form opinions about positives / negatives on the spot amplifies the likelihood of bias or lack of context.
  - fjeifisjf 6y ago
    It sounds like you are hiring for a bureaucratic corporate borg and parent poster wants to work for a human team striving to achieve something. Different strokes.
sneak 6y ago
Related: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...
fickleycurious 6y ago
Do you get so much time to ask these questions during an interview ? The standard white board kind of interview goes on for an hour and you are supposed to finish the coding questions in 45-50 minutes. That hardly leaves any time for counter questions.
- natefox 6y ago
  If you run out of time, set up another call for you to interview them (eg ask these questions). Interviews are a two way street.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Whenever I get interviewed, we spend about 60% of the time on my questions and 40% on theirs. There's a lot to learn about a company before you join, and the interview is the right place to ask.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I have vowed to someone I get advice from that the next interview cycle I will force the issue. We even worked out that I might interview a few “practice” places to get my patter down. Thing is, I’m tired of talking myself into being excited about a vague opportunity. It doesn’t matter if they love me if I know nothing about them. And honestly, I’ve seen myself sabotage an interview that was making me uncomfortable because I don’t want to be someone’s anecdote about the guy who walked out mid interview. So you might learn something more about me that changes your mind in the next ten minutes but if I don’t know more about you then it’s all for nothing. The thing nobody wants to talk about is that psychologically, you already made up your mind 20 minutes in, now you’re just trying to justify your decision. I’ve seen people flunk a candidate for answering a question correctly and recommend another for getting the same question wrong.
- perlgeek 6y ago
  When scheduling an interview, you can state that you also have some questions you want to ask, and politely ask for time to be included in the schedule. If they refuse, that also tells you something about the company. At least in the interviews I've participated in (both as applicant and as host) it's always been a mutual affair, both parties trying to figure out if there is good fit.
chrisbennet 6y ago
A question I like to ask is: "You've seen my resume', what new things do you think I can learn here?" I genuinely want to know this but I discovered a side benefit: the interviewer often starts trying to sell you on the company, flipping the dynamic i.e. you're not chasing them, they're chasing you.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I kinda miss the Wild West days, when nobody had much idea how to interview and we were all winging it. I got to interview myself a few times. People like it when they get to talk about themselves, but you also get to run through your values in question form and the clever will pick up on this. Oh this guy cares about <practice that is interesting but not ubiquitous>. The reverse does not work out. Just because they ask you a bunch of questions about a topic doesn’t mean they are good at caring about that topic. Found that out with testing a couple times, and I one memorable case not until well after I accepted.
vrutberg 6y ago
I can agree that most, if not all, questions in the linked blog post are good questions to ask any interviewer. I also feel that simply asking questions, no matter what they are, is good as that shows interest and curiosity. On the occasions where I have interviewed people that have applied for mid to senior level positions I expect at least a handful of questions from the candidate. Someone interviewing for a senior position but not asking any questions comes off as a bit odd.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  Asking questions also signals "I can afford to walk away", which is a desirable quality (if somebody else would hire them, they can't be terrible).
rickspencer3 6y ago
I have been exclusively in leadership positions since about 2005. I usually ask potential peers and ICs interviewing me: "if I were to get this job, what is the first thing you would ask me to do to help you." This question often helps uncover aspects of the real (vs. stated) culture, helps me build a view of the problems and opportunities facing the organization, and gives me a good chance to position myself as the kind of person who can help them with their specific problems.
- thewebcount 6y ago
  This is one of the things that really turned me off about interviewing at Google. When I asked a question like that, they basically said, "Oh you won't be working with me." To which I asked, "What team will I be working on?" Their reply was, "Nobody knows. Once you're hired, you can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do." So, uh, what are you interviewing for, then? How do I know the team I want to work on will accept me? Or if they even have openings? Can I speak with anyone I'd be working with? I just gave up asking questions at that point because I knew I would never be able to work in an environment like that.
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    That was my experience as well. "You can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do" implies the candidate has much more freedom in the process than is actually extended.
    - rleigh 6y ago
      Likewise. I would have rejected any Google job offer after the interview experience. I need some certainty that I'm going to be working on projects which actually benefit me in terms of interests, experience and career development. I would not have been willing to make such a huge gamble, and when none of the people have a clue what or where you might be working, that was a huge red flag for me. You never get this with smaller companies. You're being hired for a specific reason, and the interview process is as much them selling themselves to you as it is you to them. In all these cases, I've been confident to accept or reject because the interview process gave me sufficient insight into the company and the projects they wanted me to work on that I could make a decision with confidence.
lukevp 6y ago
If anyone is interested in doing a mock technical interview, please reach out, email in profile. I have interviewed developers since 2015. I’m currently a software development manager for an enterprise with a team of 4 that I personally hired, and 4 more contractors that I also interviewed and validated. I really enjoy the process of interviewing, especially junior candidates, but companies understandably limit the feedback that is able to be provided to candidates after the fact. With a mock interview, I can go through an interview much the way I would conduct it for a real business, but I can provide as detailed of feedback as you would like and we can have a conversation after the fact about how the interview went, strengths, weaknesses, etc. I will provide this service in 2 different ways - if you would like to keep it private, we can do it on a paid basis. If you are willing to share it with everyone else, it is completely free to you and it will be posted online. I’m hoping most people take the second approach as I feel that this could be a valuable contribution to the community. I’ll provide more details on either option if you’re interested. Disclaimer: this is offered by me on a personal basis, and does not reflect the opinions, thoughts, beliefs, or anything else from any employer I currently work for or have in the past. This is offered purely for educational purposes with a fictitious base company, and there is no job or result from this interview other than some additional experience and knowledge.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Around 2008 the company I worked for was bought by a huge company so it worked out, but if it hadn’t we fully had a plan to get a group together to review resumes and give mock interviews. Every blip since I’ve threatened to do so and never have. That was also the first company I ever gave interviews for, and we grew a lot so I did quite a few. To this day, one of the most surprising things I’ve learned about interviewing on either side was how terrifying being the responsible party for a hiring decision was. I was confident about digging myself out of any technical problem I got myself into (or at least, I knew my strength, and to refuse situations I couldn’t clever my way out of). But somehow the spectre of being the person who said we should hire the new terrible coworker was daunting. Fixing a crashing bug? No problem. Fixing someone who writes crashing bugs? Oh boy. For quite a few years I recalled that feeling when I interviewed and it kept me relaxed. I suspect it worked better than the advice to picture the audience naked.
aaronbrethorst 6y ago
Three questions I like to ask: 1. What's your favorite part of working here? 2. What's your least favorite part of working here? 3. What question did I not ask that I should have?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
kyuudou 6y ago
"What would a typical day for me in my role look like from a high-level overview?" Hopefully it's not "well there's morning standup then another 3 meetings and then another meeting and then you have 2 hours in the afternoon to do pair programming in a lively open office environment"
akegalj 6y ago
When interviewed for engineering position at Google 6-7 years ago I asked: "How is the weather at OfficeWhereIAppliedTo?" It was a really honest question because sunny weather is something that I really care for as I am from mediterian. The reaction was really positive - everyone was laughing and interview ended in a very positive and relaxed tone. At the end I didn't get the offer - but that's because I was too slow at solving algorithmic problems.
- rubans 6y ago
  If I was interviewing someone and they asked what the weather was like at the office, I would just think they'd wasted a question on something they could easily Google.
perlgeek 6y ago
Another really good thing to ask is about culture. And not in the blunt "what is your culture like?", but rather frame it as dichotomies. Do you default to action, or default to inaction? How do you value quality of code vs. speed of delivery? Do you prefer your engineer to do pure engineering, or prefer to get involved with the business side? If you had a short production outage, and a root cause cannot be found easily, how much time would the team spend searching for it (before giving up)? Would that change if the same error occurred twice? Three times? Questions like this that don't have an obvious, universal answer (IMHO) are a really good way to get a glimpse into the culture.
- skrebbel 6y ago
  > Do you default to action, or default to inaction? This is the reverse "Where do you see yourself in 5 years". Don't ask ridiculous questions like that, you know what answer you're gonna get.
  - perlgeek 6y ago
    I beg to differ. Startups tend to default to action. Lots of big / conservative companies default to inaction. When you cannot judge from the outside, you could get interesting results.
    - thefreeman 6y ago
      Is anyone really going to admit that they default to inaction though?
- dorkwood 6y ago
  > Do you default to action, or default to inaction? Why not just come out and ask "is it good to work here, or bad to work here?"
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  Anybody versed in corporate-speak is going to give the obvious, universal non-answer that "It depends; we try to balance things out appropriately."
sailfast 6y ago
One thing I haven’t seen listed yet that is important to personal happiness: “What does your change process look like?” Do they have boards and paperwork? Pull requests and code? Engineer just executes? Do they make technical decisions at the team level or require further meetings / boards, etc. Tells you a lot about the company both in terms of maturity but also in terms of culture.
tomaszs 6y ago
I know one question to ask at the beginning of a technical interview: what is the point? Tech interview gives no information about a candidate, his knowledge or skills. Its a horrible horrible idea to do it.
- DingleDook101 6y ago
  I think everyone and their mother knows the sad state that is technical interviewing. Any technical interview I've done is _so_ far removed from any practical knowledge/experience that it's asinine.
b0rsuk 6y ago
It's important to ask any questions at all, because sometimes it can be revealing. In the last place I worked in, when I asked the second question the boss told me we can talk on the way to the elevator because he had another canditate soon. I took it at a face value, and it was a mistake. There were no crowds applying for the company, later he even offered us a monetary bonus for bringing a new employee. He was highly manipulative in various ways.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  > he even offered us a monetary bonus for bringing a new employee As far as I know, that is very common, at least in the places I worked. If someone mentions in the interview that you tipped them about this company and they are hired, a bonus of 500-1000 for each of you is what I would typically expect the policy to be in medium to large companies. Their thinking is probably that talent is hard enough to come by already and that recruiters are way more expensive than that. (One company I interned at, I remember the boss complaining how big a cut external recruiters get, though I don't know the actual percentage it sounded like in the order of 10% of a year's wages just for getting you in touch.)
bas_ta 6y ago
I usually let myself ask whatever I genuinely want to know about the company, without sounding tacky. Some general quetions I ask is team structure, how many team members will I work with, what will be my job in particular etc. Some questions I ask the interviewer: "What is currently your greatest challenge here at work?" "How long have you been working here?" "What do you like about this job?" "Is there a programming language/technology you enjoy working with and why?" Some interviewers really like these questions and I think it's a nice way of learning stuff along the way even if you don't get the job. The "favorite programming language" questions gave me some pretty cool insights. Also, I think it's better to ask specific questions. Rather than asking "how's your tipical day?", ask "how was yesterday at the office?" People tend to approximate, forget or just skip the details when answering generic questions. Of course, they can always lie, but a specific question might just be a better shot at getting the information you want. Also, questions about product development workflow can say a lot about the company. I once got the same answer to every single question about the company's internal processes and communication: "It depends". They had no clue what they were doing.
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037313
wmu 6y ago
After series of interviews I compiled questions to employer, maybe that would help others: https://github.com/WojciechMula/interview-questions https://github.com/WojciechMula/interview-questions
phendrenad2 6y ago
I like to ask questions that reveal behavioral and personality traits, and by analyzing them can indicate competency as a coworker and cultural fit. I find the attributes of my peers within the company to make a much larger impact on my happiness than the attributes of management or the organization.
jamespollack 6y ago
how come you have to ask this stuff at the end? wouldn't it make more sense for this information to be provided up front? what does it matter if i'm technically qualified for your job if your team size, structure, tech stack, required availability, etc. isn't a fit? why would you wait until after a tech screen for this? seems like a waste of everyone's time.
rydermidnight9 6y ago
Don't know what to say
seansmccullough 6y ago
“How many people have quit your team in the last 6 month? Last year?” Turnover is a major red flag. Every hiring manager thinks their team is great, so asking subjective questions like “how’s the on-call?” Probably won’t yield useful answers.
- croisillon 6y ago
  That's something I always (have to) ask because otherwise nobody will tell you. At my current job it was particularly interesting because they started explaining me why they were looking for someone ("had to" fire the difficult person before) and why they were kind of afraid of getting someone as difficult as the person before.
lucb1e 6y ago
I recently had a phone interview and while trying to figure out what I would want from an ideal job, I was surprised to discover I had not ever seen anyone recommend some of the questions I came up with: - What is [your parent company] and/or [you, the subsidiary] doing to fight the climate crisis? - What about diversity, how is your male-to-female ratio and are there many colleagues of non-European heritage? Potential follow-up: Are there any efforts to improve that? (Of course, replace "European" with the region where most privileged people are typically from in your area.) There were obviously more things I cared about, but I realized that this is one of the things I would want and should be looking for. I hope it may inspire others to do the same, as it has come up in my current company that nobody noticed that candidates are even looking for this sort of thing (and so, "from a business perspective, why should we even try if it makes no financial sense?").

211 points by wheresvic3 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

These questions do matter, but the answers are not as important as "Why?" Answers to such question will change as a product and company evolves. But how did they get to those answers? What strategy drives their decisions? In short, why do they use what they use, and do what they do. You should ask how they evolved to this point, what struggles they are having, and where they may be headed in the future. Those answers will be far more insightful into who you are working with, and whether you want to work in their environment.

jameshart 6y ago
As a candidate, be very careful asking interviewers ‘why’ the company does something in a particular way. ‘Why?’ Is an aggressive question. When you hit your interviewer with a ‘why?’ Question, you put them on the defensive. They have to justify that their company isn’t dumb, that there are good reasons for doing it that way, that there even is a rational reason why - when they may not know the reasons, they personally might even disagree, and the fact is there may not be a good reason. And while you might think ‘I really want to know that sort of thing if I’m going to be working there’, the downside is that to get that answer, you have leave your interviewer with a bad taste in their mouth - ‘that candidate seemed to be judging us for how we picked our front-end stack, and I felt slightly embarrassed defending that we still use angular even though I personally have been fighting a running battle to move to a new stack for a year now’ And honestly, those are definitely not red flags right there. If your requirements for joining a tech org are that you expect them to have made all the same decisions you would have made if you were in their shoes, without error, then a) your bar might be a little high and b) what the hell do they need you for, they’ve already got a team that can do everything you could bring to the table.
- Swizec 6y ago
  Why questions are great because they show you think about things beyond just the surface code typist level. You can go one step further and engage in proper discussion and offer suggestions and things they can try to improve whatever situation they’re in that leads you to ask a Why question. Show that you bring solutions to the table, not just a pair of hands. And if you fear why is too aggressive, use “how come” instead. Always try to leave your interviewer feeling “Wow I really want that guy to come solve my problems” and “Fuck that was a good suggestion I wanna try that”
- vageli 6y ago
  > As a candidate, be very careful asking interviewers ‘why’ the company does something in a particular way. > ‘Why?’ Is an aggressive question. I agree that "why" can be interpreted negatively but there are definitely more disarming ways to probe. I personally would say (and have asked) something like, "Can you tell me more about the process or framework used to aid in decision making about technologies introduced in the organization and how it played out in your decision to use X?"
- alxlaz 6y ago
  > what the hell do they need you for, they’ve already got a team that can do everything you could bring to the table. If that's the case, then why are they conducting an interview in the first place? I guess an argument can be made that it's counterproductive to ask "aggressive" questions if you want to be hired. But then again, candidates will likely be asked "why" they did something dozens of times in a whiteboard interview. If someone can't take 10% of the pressure they expose their candidates to, maybe they shouldn't be doing interviews in the first place. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy to answer any "why" question that I'm in a position to answer, and I always have, whenever a candidate has asked me one. I'm wary about taking the mere act of asking a question as a good sign (or a bad one) in the age of "Cracking to Coding Interview" and whatnot but it's the kind of question that leads to useful discussion. Sure, we weren't right about a lot of choices we made, and sometimes, in hindsight, they were flat out indefensible, and we had to deal with the consequences. That's part of software development everywhere. If they ask that because their bar is too high and they don't want to join a team that makes more than N wrong choices a year, fine, it's their bar, they get to set it wherever they like. If they ask that just because they think questioning accepted practice is a good idea, that's actually great. Lots of companies end up making one bad mistake after another just because no one stops to ask why. And lots of narcissistic team leads and managers don't want that kind of attitude on their teams -- if that leads to not being hired, that's a bullet dodged, not a wasted opportunity. On the other hand a question like this is a great opportunity to show them that we're good at both leveraging our assets and at owning up to our mistakes. That's definitely a quality I'd be looking for in a prospective team. Edit: oh yeah, maybe some more general context is appropriate here. One thing that took me a while to learn is that not every interview you don't ace is a failure. I don't mean that in some personal development hoodoo way, like the way to success is riddled with failures or whatever. I mean, literally, that there are interviews which you don't ace, and that's a good thing, because if you'd aced it, you would have hated working there, or it would have been really bad for your career, or both. It's one thing if you don't get hired because you lack the knowledge and skills -- okay, you can work on that and try again later. But if you get passed because you asked the wrong question (and that question wasn't offensive or anything, obviously), or because you did not know that specific thing that a lead dev is really proud about knowing, that's a blessing in disguise.

buddyp450 6y ago

There's one important question I haven't seen on here that's saved me on more than one occasion. "Are there any concerns you may have that I can address that may lead you to believe I'm not the right candidate?" I've been able to address: lack of previous experience, lack of a degree, time in between jobs, time spent at the last job, all thanks to this question.

cheez 6y ago
That is a fantastic question.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Most of the time, if the interviewer formed these concerns, you’re just opening yourself up to give them space for confirmation bias to take over. What might have been one bad interview session out of six, which might not rule you out, now becomes a crater of destruction that will absolutely be a big talking point in the debrief and feedback. Additionally it comes off as insecure. Like you can’t tolerate the idea that you might actually have made mistakes or lacked skills or fluffed your resume or communicated badly, and you deserve a chance to debate your way out of it. Finally it also seems like fishing for negative feedback you can disagree with later. You likely won’t get significant feedback after the interviews are over since companies don’t reveal it for legal reasons, so you’re trying to get interviewers off-guard to get that feedback and later act like it’s unfair. As an interviewer I would strictly reply that I need to write down my notes from the interview, review and analyze them, and compare notes in the debrief session before I will develop any type of feedback, positive or negative. The interview itself is a place for information exchange, and trying to form opinions about positives / negatives on the spot amplifies the likelihood of bias or lack of context.
- fjeifisjf 6y ago
  It sounds like you are hiring for a bureaucratic corporate borg and parent poster wants to work for a human team striving to achieve something. Different strokes.

sneak 6y ago

Related: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...

fickleycurious 6y ago

Do you get so much time to ask these questions during an interview ? The standard white board kind of interview goes on for an hour and you are supposed to finish the coding questions in 45-50 minutes. That hardly leaves any time for counter questions.

natefox 6y ago
If you run out of time, set up another call for you to interview them (eg ask these questions). Interviews are a two way street.
StavrosK 6y ago
Whenever I get interviewed, we spend about 60% of the time on my questions and 40% on theirs. There's a lot to learn about a company before you join, and the interview is the right place to ask.
hinkley 6y ago
I have vowed to someone I get advice from that the next interview cycle I will force the issue. We even worked out that I might interview a few “practice” places to get my patter down. Thing is, I’m tired of talking myself into being excited about a vague opportunity. It doesn’t matter if they love me if I know nothing about them. And honestly, I’ve seen myself sabotage an interview that was making me uncomfortable because I don’t want to be someone’s anecdote about the guy who walked out mid interview. So you might learn something more about me that changes your mind in the next ten minutes but if I don’t know more about you then it’s all for nothing. The thing nobody wants to talk about is that psychologically, you already made up your mind 20 minutes in, now you’re just trying to justify your decision. I’ve seen people flunk a candidate for answering a question correctly and recommend another for getting the same question wrong.
perlgeek 6y ago
When scheduling an interview, you can state that you also have some questions you want to ask, and politely ask for time to be included in the schedule. If they refuse, that also tells you something about the company. At least in the interviews I've participated in (both as applicant and as host) it's always been a mutual affair, both parties trying to figure out if there is good fit.

chrisbennet 6y ago

A question I like to ask is: "You've seen my resume', what new things do you think I can learn here?" I genuinely want to know this but I discovered a side benefit: the interviewer often starts trying to sell you on the company, flipping the dynamic i.e. you're not chasing them, they're chasing you.

hinkley 6y ago
I kinda miss the Wild West days, when nobody had much idea how to interview and we were all winging it. I got to interview myself a few times. People like it when they get to talk about themselves, but you also get to run through your values in question form and the clever will pick up on this. Oh this guy cares about <practice that is interesting but not ubiquitous>. The reverse does not work out. Just because they ask you a bunch of questions about a topic doesn’t mean they are good at caring about that topic. Found that out with testing a couple times, and I one memorable case not until well after I accepted.

vrutberg 6y ago

I can agree that most, if not all, questions in the linked blog post are good questions to ask any interviewer. I also feel that simply asking questions, no matter what they are, is good as that shows interest and curiosity. On the occasions where I have interviewed people that have applied for mid to senior level positions I expect at least a handful of questions from the candidate. Someone interviewing for a senior position but not asking any questions comes off as a bit odd.

wongarsu 6y ago
Asking questions also signals "I can afford to walk away", which is a desirable quality (if somebody else would hire them, they can't be terrible).

rickspencer3 6y ago

I have been exclusively in leadership positions since about 2005. I usually ask potential peers and ICs interviewing me: "if I were to get this job, what is the first thing you would ask me to do to help you." This question often helps uncover aspects of the real (vs. stated) culture, helps me build a view of the problems and opportunities facing the organization, and gives me a good chance to position myself as the kind of person who can help them with their specific problems.

thewebcount 6y ago
This is one of the things that really turned me off about interviewing at Google. When I asked a question like that, they basically said, "Oh you won't be working with me." To which I asked, "What team will I be working on?" Their reply was, "Nobody knows. Once you're hired, you can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do." So, uh, what are you interviewing for, then? How do I know the team I want to work on will accept me? Or if they even have openings? Can I speak with anyone I'd be working with? I just gave up asking questions at that point because I knew I would never be able to work in an environment like that.
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  That was my experience as well. "You can figure out what team you want to work on and what you want to do" implies the candidate has much more freedom in the process than is actually extended.
  - rleigh 6y ago
    Likewise. I would have rejected any Google job offer after the interview experience. I need some certainty that I'm going to be working on projects which actually benefit me in terms of interests, experience and career development. I would not have been willing to make such a huge gamble, and when none of the people have a clue what or where you might be working, that was a huge red flag for me. You never get this with smaller companies. You're being hired for a specific reason, and the interview process is as much them selling themselves to you as it is you to them. In all these cases, I've been confident to accept or reject because the interview process gave me sufficient insight into the company and the projects they wanted me to work on that I could make a decision with confidence.

lukevp 6y ago

If anyone is interested in doing a mock technical interview, please reach out, email in profile. I have interviewed developers since 2015. I’m currently a software development manager for an enterprise with a team of 4 that I personally hired, and 4 more contractors that I also interviewed and validated. I really enjoy the process of interviewing, especially junior candidates, but companies understandably limit the feedback that is able to be provided to candidates after the fact. With a mock interview, I can go through an interview much the way I would conduct it for a real business, but I can provide as detailed of feedback as you would like and we can have a conversation after the fact about how the interview went, strengths, weaknesses, etc. I will provide this service in 2 different ways - if you would like to keep it private, we can do it on a paid basis. If you are willing to share it with everyone else, it is completely free to you and it will be posted online. I’m hoping most people take the second approach as I feel that this could be a valuable contribution to the community. I’ll provide more details on either option if you’re interested. Disclaimer: this is offered by me on a personal basis, and does not reflect the opinions, thoughts, beliefs, or anything else from any employer I currently work for or have in the past. This is offered purely for educational purposes with a fictitious base company, and there is no job or result from this interview other than some additional experience and knowledge.

hinkley 6y ago
Around 2008 the company I worked for was bought by a huge company so it worked out, but if it hadn’t we fully had a plan to get a group together to review resumes and give mock interviews. Every blip since I’ve threatened to do so and never have. That was also the first company I ever gave interviews for, and we grew a lot so I did quite a few. To this day, one of the most surprising things I’ve learned about interviewing on either side was how terrifying being the responsible party for a hiring decision was. I was confident about digging myself out of any technical problem I got myself into (or at least, I knew my strength, and to refuse situations I couldn’t clever my way out of). But somehow the spectre of being the person who said we should hire the new terrible coworker was daunting. Fixing a crashing bug? No problem. Fixing someone who writes crashing bugs? Oh boy. For quite a few years I recalled that feeling when I interviewed and it kept me relaxed. I suspect it worked better than the advice to picture the audience naked.

aaronbrethorst 6y ago

Three questions I like to ask: 1. What's your favorite part of working here? 2. What's your least favorite part of working here? 3. What question did I not ask that I should have?

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kyuudou 6y ago

"What would a typical day for me in my role look like from a high-level overview?" Hopefully it's not "well there's morning standup then another 3 meetings and then another meeting and then you have 2 hours in the afternoon to do pair programming in a lively open office environment"

akegalj 6y ago

When interviewed for engineering position at Google 6-7 years ago I asked: "How is the weather at OfficeWhereIAppliedTo?" It was a really honest question because sunny weather is something that I really care for as I am from mediterian. The reaction was really positive - everyone was laughing and interview ended in a very positive and relaxed tone. At the end I didn't get the offer - but that's because I was too slow at solving algorithmic problems.

rubans 6y ago
If I was interviewing someone and they asked what the weather was like at the office, I would just think they'd wasted a question on something they could easily Google.

perlgeek 6y ago

Another really good thing to ask is about culture. And not in the blunt "what is your culture like?", but rather frame it as dichotomies. Do you default to action, or default to inaction? How do you value quality of code vs. speed of delivery? Do you prefer your engineer to do pure engineering, or prefer to get involved with the business side? If you had a short production outage, and a root cause cannot be found easily, how much time would the team spend searching for it (before giving up)? Would that change if the same error occurred twice? Three times? Questions like this that don't have an obvious, universal answer (IMHO) are a really good way to get a glimpse into the culture.

skrebbel 6y ago
> Do you default to action, or default to inaction? This is the reverse "Where do you see yourself in 5 years". Don't ask ridiculous questions like that, you know what answer you're gonna get.
- perlgeek 6y ago
  I beg to differ. Startups tend to default to action. Lots of big / conservative companies default to inaction. When you cannot judge from the outside, you could get interesting results.
  - thefreeman 6y ago
    Is anyone really going to admit that they default to inaction though?
dorkwood 6y ago
> Do you default to action, or default to inaction? Why not just come out and ask "is it good to work here, or bad to work here?"
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
Anybody versed in corporate-speak is going to give the obvious, universal non-answer that "It depends; we try to balance things out appropriately."

sailfast 6y ago

One thing I haven’t seen listed yet that is important to personal happiness: “What does your change process look like?” Do they have boards and paperwork? Pull requests and code? Engineer just executes? Do they make technical decisions at the team level or require further meetings / boards, etc. Tells you a lot about the company both in terms of maturity but also in terms of culture.

tomaszs 6y ago

I know one question to ask at the beginning of a technical interview: what is the point? Tech interview gives no information about a candidate, his knowledge or skills. Its a horrible horrible idea to do it.

DingleDook101 6y ago
I think everyone and their mother knows the sad state that is technical interviewing. Any technical interview I've done is _so_ far removed from any practical knowledge/experience that it's asinine.

b0rsuk 6y ago

It's important to ask any questions at all, because sometimes it can be revealing. In the last place I worked in, when I asked the second question the boss told me we can talk on the way to the elevator because he had another canditate soon. I took it at a face value, and it was a mistake. There were no crowds applying for the company, later he even offered us a monetary bonus for bringing a new employee. He was highly manipulative in various ways.

lucb1e 6y ago
> he even offered us a monetary bonus for bringing a new employee As far as I know, that is very common, at least in the places I worked. If someone mentions in the interview that you tipped them about this company and they are hired, a bonus of 500-1000 for each of you is what I would typically expect the policy to be in medium to large companies. Their thinking is probably that talent is hard enough to come by already and that recruiters are way more expensive than that. (One company I interned at, I remember the boss complaining how big a cut external recruiters get, though I don't know the actual percentage it sounded like in the order of 10% of a year's wages just for getting you in touch.)

bas_ta 6y ago

I usually let myself ask whatever I genuinely want to know about the company, without sounding tacky. Some general quetions I ask is team structure, how many team members will I work with, what will be my job in particular etc. Some questions I ask the interviewer: "What is currently your greatest challenge here at work?" "How long have you been working here?" "What do you like about this job?" "Is there a programming language/technology you enjoy working with and why?" Some interviewers really like these questions and I think it's a nice way of learning stuff along the way even if you don't get the job. The "favorite programming language" questions gave me some pretty cool insights. Also, I think it's better to ask specific questions. Rather than asking "how's your tipical day?", ask "how was yesterday at the office?" People tend to approximate, forget or just skip the details when answering generic questions. Of course, they can always lie, but a specific question might just be a better shot at getting the information you want. Also, questions about product development workflow can say a lot about the company. I once got the same answer to every single question about the company's internal processes and communication: "It depends". They had no clue what they were doing.

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037313

wmu 6y ago

After series of interviews I compiled questions to employer, maybe that would help others: https://github.com/WojciechMula/interview-questions https://github.com/WojciechMula/interview-questions

phendrenad2 6y ago

I like to ask questions that reveal behavioral and personality traits, and by analyzing them can indicate competency as a coworker and cultural fit. I find the attributes of my peers within the company to make a much larger impact on my happiness than the attributes of management or the organization.

jamespollack 6y ago

how come you have to ask this stuff at the end? wouldn't it make more sense for this information to be provided up front? what does it matter if i'm technically qualified for your job if your team size, structure, tech stack, required availability, etc. isn't a fit? why would you wait until after a tech screen for this? seems like a waste of everyone's time.

rydermidnight9 6y ago

Don't know what to say

seansmccullough 6y ago

“How many people have quit your team in the last 6 month? Last year?” Turnover is a major red flag. Every hiring manager thinks their team is great, so asking subjective questions like “how’s the on-call?” Probably won’t yield useful answers.

croisillon 6y ago
That's something I always (have to) ask because otherwise nobody will tell you. At my current job it was particularly interesting because they started explaining me why they were looking for someone ("had to" fire the difficult person before) and why they were kind of afraid of getting someone as difficult as the person before.

lucb1e 6y ago

I recently had a phone interview and while trying to figure out what I would want from an ideal job, I was surprised to discover I had not ever seen anyone recommend some of the questions I came up with: - What is [your parent company] and/or [you, the subsidiary] doing to fight the climate crisis? - What about diversity, how is your male-to-female ratio and are there many colleagues of non-European heritage? Potential follow-up: Are there any efforts to improve that? (Of course, replace "European" with the region where most privileged people are typically from in your area.) There were obviously more things I cared about, but I realized that this is one of the things I would want and should be looking for. I hope it may inspire others to do the same, as it has come up in my current company that nobody noticed that candidates are even looking for this sort of thing (and so, "from a business perspective, why should we even try if it makes no financial sense?").