> i think you missed the "series of questions like" and the "and why" No, I didn't miss these, those are the most important part of the interview. Here's two

> i think you missed the "series of questions like" and the "and why" No, I didn't miss these, those are the most important part of the interview. Here's two example answers to demonstrate the importance of the "why": "We use git because everyone else does" is the definition of cargo culting, good you use git but not great reasoning. "We don't use git because it turns out 98% of our code changes are to XML, and we've found git for XML means even the simplest merge is a nightmare", code base sounds terrifying but that answer tells me engineers working there are thoughtful about their process. The series of questions that logically follow very is natural stuff like "do you use CI/CD?", "how are PRs handled?", "what are code reviews like?" these are basic questions that give me as an engineer as sense of what the overall technical culture is like. And to your point, the more clearly the interviewer can answer these it means the less time it takes to get changes shipped to prod. Engineers asking these questions aren't bike shedding, they're making sure they are going to a good environment where they can focus on writing code and shipping features. Frankly if conversations like this aren't part of your standard interviews then it doesn't sound like a very mature engineering culture. If you're uncomfortable with these conversations, that is an incredible red flag.