4 ms·
I want to add my own advice. You remember that culture fit part of the interview that every company does? It’s never about finding out if your young dumb and re
by runawaybottle 6y ago
I want to add my own advice. You remember that culture fit part of the interview that every company does? It’s never about finding out if your young dumb and ready to fuck. It’s about are you willing to put up with a certain management style. That’s the job offer, you are being offered money to be able to professionally handle their people system. If you are okay with handling it, you can work there.
Things that will help probe in that phase of the interview:
- Ask about deadlines.
- Ask about requirements, how much do they have, how often they change, who makes the final call, how are they scoped initially, how involved are the stakeholders.
- Beyond unit testing, how is QA handled, how is user acceptance testing handled, how does all of this affect timelines.
- Ask for a roadmap, can they tell you what they plan on building in the next year. Some managers don’t share this information with their team in general, so expect a solid ‘not sure, but we have stuff promise’ type response (which gives you an answer on transparency).
- Why do they need one more person on the team? Here you really want to find out their current bottlenecks. Then probe deeper and find out if the bottlenecks are a lack of labor, or systemic issues (see above bullet points). Scary answers include ‘no roadmap, and everything is on time’ - so why do you need me?
- The dance with the manager at a startup could eliminate you as they are still looking for people that will put up with absolutely anything. But, they might also be ready for more process oriented people. Again, you have to signal who you are. If these things don’t matter to you, go with the ‘I eat sleep and code answer’.
If you sufficiently annoyed them at the end of those questions, both you and the company will agree in a non-spoken dance that you won’t be happy in their management style.
If you really really just need a check, don’t ever ask questions like that. Just say, ‘I build stuff on my spare time constantly, and I just love development, so I think this would be a great opportunity to grow’. You are signaling you are desperate and ready to fuck.
Small things to consider, if you ask those questions to a regular dev on their team, you will get feedback that you might not fit (so don’t ask the team these questions). Save it for the manager, and negotiate with the unspoken dance directly.
Best of luck, culture fit is definitely how the manager and you maintain healthiness, what you can put up, and what they can put up with. Even the most toxic manager has some humanity, and it is also exhausting for him/her to deal with unhappy people. Work together in the culture fit part to parse if everyone’s expectation is within reach.
The end goal of all of this is you don’t walk away from the job because you didn’t know what you got yourself into. You’re an adult, go into everything with both eyes open, no crying at the end.
- SeeManDo 6y agoYou can definitely operate a profitable startup/any sort of business if you can find enough college grads/cert drones who are desperate for work, will take $15/hour, are "dumb and ready to fuck" and will put up with a team of unprofessional micromanaging assholes. You just to have to make sure you are their leader!
- runawaybottle 6y agoBeen there done that, I’ve worked for $15 bux an hour before at a software company.
- XorNot 6y agoI just saved this list into my phone for future reference. These are some solid questions I've skirted around before but never consistently followed (didn't for my current position, probably should have)
- runawaybottle 6y agoAnd I warn you, do not ask these questions unless you definitely have a comfortable position, these are all red flag inquisitions. I’ve been in desperate spots before, and I never dig like this. It’s a position of luxury.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y agoI've been in a position where I had to find my next opportunity. While I was considering options, I asked a ton of questions and got to know the people/tech/processes extensively, and I believe I got a better offer because of it.
- runawaybottle 6y agoThat’s great to hear. Any tips on how you modulated your questions? I think it’s possible the spirit of the inquiry was the same, some do it better.