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> This list smacks of a developer prima donna mentality The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and

> This list smacks of a developer prima donna mentality The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and find 10 other places with better answers to these questions. > testing was a waste of time because it slows down releases? Not a single question is anagolous to this. Developers want a fast CI process (and testing can be fast, given adequate time allocated to improving CI) because developers are happiest when they are productive. What type of business person would say "no" to employees who only want to be productive? Apparently, the majority. The problem is when micro-management ends up prioritizing tracking work over doing work. It might help to listen to people who are passionate about shipping product, instead of shipping metrics. Although it is a software concept, these questions guage the degree of accidental vs. essential complexity within an org.

dasil003 4y ago
> The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and find 10 other places with better answers to these questions. Sure, but will that be a better place to work? Ultimately there are many failure modes for software engineering teams, and grilling the interviewer with a series of highly-specific workflow questions is not likely to yield much insight. If the team is really as dysfunctional as the author fears, then you're not likely to get an answer that is on the same wavelength as you anyway. You're better off asking things a little higher level and a little more open-ended and then reading between the lines. So for example, instead of: > Does this team or any of the related teams have a person who actively rejects proposals to improve the code base? You could ask: > What are the biggest problems in the code base currently? You can then engage in a dialogue and probe into details organically. This will yield much more fruit than asking a question to which the obvious answer is "no, of course not".
- zamalek 4y ago
  I definitely agree with your ideas. I aimed only the refute the concept of "developer prima donna." Just like any codebase will forever contain some amount of accidental complexity, so will any org. It's all about whether it is being tackled or embraced. While these questions may not be perfect, accidental overcomplexity can (probably will) make your job miserable.
- michaelt 4y ago
  > Sure, but will that be a better place to work? If an employer doesn't give developers local admin rights on their machines, I'm quite certain it's not going to be a better place to work for me.
Silhouette 4y ago
The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and find 10 other places with better answers to these questions. That may have been the case in certain parts of the world for the past few years. The next year or two might bring some rude awakenings for mid-to-senior devs who are only a few years in and have never seen things any other way. I was trying to work out how many of these questions a candidate could ask me - with the attitude implied by the tone and phrasing in the article - before I immediately terminated the interview and no-hired them. They might get away with one or two of the ones with reasonable underlying points with the benefit of the doubt about the attitude problem but I doubt they'd get past that. If they really can get hired at 10 other places instead then good for them but somehow I doubt that would actually be true for this kind of person. No-one wants a toxic prima donna on the team.
- zamalek 4y ago
  > reasonable underlying points with the benefit of the doubt about the attitude problem So asking about CI times, code review process, admin rights, being able to run tests locally, and operating system choice would likely result in a terminated interview? I think the questions would be working perfectly in that scenario.
  - Silhouette 4y ago
    The point here isn't the questions. Asking questions on those topics in a mature and professional way would be absolutely fine. Asking a series of questions with an almost accusatory tone and evident my-way-or-the-high-way attitude would not and that is the concern many of us here appear to have with the linked article.

dasil003 4y ago

> The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and find 10 other places with better answers to these questions. Sure, but will that be a better place to work? Ultimately there are many failure modes for software engineering teams, and grilling the interviewer with a series of highly-specific workflow questions is not likely to yield much insight. If the team is really as dysfunctional as the author fears, then you're not likely to get an answer that is on the same wavelength as you anyway. You're better off asking things a little higher level and a little more open-ended and then reading between the lines. So for example, instead of: > Does this team or any of the related teams have a person who actively rejects proposals to improve the code base? You could ask: > What are the biggest problems in the code base currently? You can then engage in a dialogue and probe into details organically. This will yield much more fruit than asking a question to which the obvious answer is "no, of course not".

zamalek 4y ago
I definitely agree with your ideas. I aimed only the refute the concept of "developer prima donna." Just like any codebase will forever contain some amount of accidental complexity, so will any org. It's all about whether it is being tackled or embraced. While these questions may not be perfect, accidental overcomplexity can (probably will) make your job miserable.
michaelt 4y ago
> Sure, but will that be a better place to work? If an employer doesn't give developers local admin rights on their machines, I'm quite certain it's not going to be a better place to work for me.

Silhouette 4y ago

The reality is that the market for good developers is so competitive that they could just walk out and find 10 other places with better answers to these questions. That may have been the case in certain parts of the world for the past few years. The next year or two might bring some rude awakenings for mid-to-senior devs who are only a few years in and have never seen things any other way. I was trying to work out how many of these questions a candidate could ask me - with the attitude implied by the tone and phrasing in the article - before I immediately terminated the interview and no-hired them. They might get away with one or two of the ones with reasonable underlying points with the benefit of the doubt about the attitude problem but I doubt they'd get past that. If they really can get hired at 10 other places instead then good for them but somehow I doubt that would actually be true for this kind of person. No-one wants a toxic prima donna on the team.

zamalek 4y ago
> reasonable underlying points with the benefit of the doubt about the attitude problem So asking about CI times, code review process, admin rights, being able to run tests locally, and operating system choice would likely result in a terminated interview? I think the questions would be working perfectly in that scenario.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  The point here isn't the questions. Asking questions on those topics in a mature and professional way would be absolutely fine. Asking a series of questions with an almost accusatory tone and evident my-way-or-the-high-way attitude would not and that is the concern many of us here appear to have with the linked article.