Ask HN: How do detect a crappy boss / toxic environment when interviewing?

[isuckatcoding]

I am currently working in a position that felt like a great startup to work at during my interview. However, a few months into the job I realized my boss was a complete and utter asshole. Given this is my first job out of college, I've stuck with it and I am looking for a new role. How can I detect during the interview / research phase to avoid such situations?

Some things I've been doing is looking at Glassdoor but the problem with that is the reviews are highly dependent on the role, or the department or some manager who may or may not still be at the company.

I am a pretty average developer which is why I was kind of desperate for that first job out of college but after getting more experience, I know I can do better than this.

[bpchaps]

-If respect isn't reciprocal, run.

-If you only get canned questions, run.

-If questions are machine gunned without any followups, run.

-If the hiring/interview process is needlessly complicated, run.

-If they give you an IQ test or similar, run.

-If they're not paying attention [0], run.

-If a pattern exists of mistakes (forgot to call, etc), run.

-If, when discussing pay, HR says "Yeah, sometimes we hire people knowing they won't last and only fit a political agenda."..... run. True story.

-If the recruiter tells you, "The path you're going down will lead to failure unless you do a startup. Frankly, I don't see you doing a startup"... run. Also true story.

..Ultimately, it comes down to gauging how "human" they are towards you. If the interviewer[s] lacks empathy, it's a sign somewhere up the chain that something's not right. Mind you, that's not to say that the interviewer doesn't necessarily have empathy.

[0] Seriously, this happens at about 20% of my interviews. Put away your fucking laptop and just listen, interviewers!

[klenwell]

On the subject of true stories:

- While you're going through your questions with the interviewer, he suddenly looks up from his laptop and says, "These are great questions. I'm going to have to use them next time I interview."

- Interviewing manager, sitting next to CTO, says to you, "Convince my boss here that automated tests are worth the investment."

- Executive of SEO company casually lets it drop that they're being sued by Google.

- You're meeting after 5pm and interviewing manager jokes with CTO during interview how his wife is the one making his smartphone buzz like a swarm of angry hornets. Then as you're exchanging your farewells in the lobby an hour or so later at end of interview, a fuming woman storms in, stands next to manager glaring, no one is introduced, and you awkwardly take your leave.

- The conversation somehow turns to what you would do if you won the lottery. You say you'd probably spend more time working on open source projects. The CTO interviewing you remarks that he'd buy a harem. The HR rep and the other developer in the interview, both female, laugh uneasily. A couple minutes later he repeats the comment.

[cname]

This only works when they make it easy for you. There are a lot of places where everything seems great during the interview (and they don't do any of the things you mentioned), but then it turns out to be terrible. There's also the problem that even good companies can be really bad at interviewing.

I think it's kind of like dating: if they don't give you an obvious signal, you probably won't know until it's too late, and sometimes when you get an "obvious" signal you might be wrong anyway.

The only advice I can think of--beyond heeding obvious warning signs--is to try to work some place that's doing something you actually care about. Then you're less likely to run into incompatibility issues, and the effect of toxic people may be mitigated.

Another angle is that you probably can't avoid working with assholes, so you can get organized and be prepared to push your own agenda. Don't back down too easily. I've seen this work fairly well, but you have to be ready to deal with the stress and potential fallout. Depends on circumstances, YMMV, etc.

[jotux]

>If you only get canned questions

>If they give you an IQ test or similar, run.

I ran across this study a few months ago that says IQ-like tests, structured interviews (canned questions), and work-sample evaluations were some of the few useful interview tools for selecting good employees [1].

[1]. http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...

[davimack]

"If they give you an IQ test or similar, run."

Amen. IQ tests, or tests to see if you're psychologically a "good fit for the organization," are a sign that they haven't a clue what they're looking for, they don't trust their own judgment, and couldn't identify a good developer in a million years.

As a proxy for developer performance, IQ tests are utter crap - but IQ tests are something that's intelligible to your run-of-the-mill idiot manager, so they get done.

Psych tests are similar - they're saying that they can't figure out by talking with you whether you're a nice person or a psychopath. Which, OK, to be fair, psychopaths might hide it fairly well ... but if so they'd hide it well enough on the test, as well.

Totally agree it's down to how human they are towards you. If they're willing to see you as an individual vs. whether they want a new part of their machine.

[swilliams]

Yup. To riff a little bit on those bullet points: If the interviewer[s] is displaying that behavior during an interview, expect the entire company to have exhibit the same stuff, only by an order of magnitude more.

If the interviewer doesn't respect you, then management doesn't respect or listen to employees.

If you only get canned questions, then the company cares more about checking boxes than creative thinking.

If the interview process is complicated, _everything_ is complicated.

If they aren't paying attention, then nobody pays attention in any meeting, so they get repeated, or stuff constantly falls through the cracks.

[bokglobule]

If you're interviewing for a job for you, treat it as though you are interviewing them. Do they ask good questions? How do they respond to yours? Are you having a conversation more than an 'interview'? Ask them to describe the ideal employee- the answer might surprise you. Trust your gut instincts. If something seems "off", run.

If you're interviewing people for a job you're filling, focus on getting them to do a small test project and bring it in for the on-site. I've done this for years, never had someone say no. Worst that happens, they're too busy and back out. Fine, no worries. Works well for developers, release managers, program managers, technical writers, etc. Basically you want to be sure that they can solve problems. Memorized knowledge of facts has almost no value (to me) these days; things are changing way too fast for that to matter in the long run. Never understood why the Google's, Microsoft's, ask the goofy questions like "why are manhole covers round?". To me, the hires that are a joy to work with are adaptable, learn things pretty fast, take pride in what they create, show leadership by helping others in their group, and are dependable.

[hndl]

These are some great points. Given that the OP mentioned that he/she's a developer I think some additional points to consider are:

- A very biased outlook to problem solving. A lot of times I see my own boss think that the right answer (to an interview question) is the one that worked for our particular case without considering that the candidate didn't have the same constraints.

- I always like to ask 'the boss' what their idea of a good team is. Some of them will say stuff like 'A team is good when they're meeting deliverables' or 'A hardworking team' etc etc. Somehow the tone weighs in here -- you want a boss who is understanding yet not a pushover, who justifies (and thereby convinces you of) his decisions when it comes to a solving problems.

- You really want to avoid the bosses who have a desire to work long hours for no real reason. This is important because of two reasons: they don't focus on the real problems and they don't value their teammates time. A good boss wants to make sure that their team is aligned with the company goals and that everyone on the team is happy and is enjoying their time with their colleagues.

Hope that helps!

[x0x0]

The worst boss I ever had (and he wasn't even the one removed by police! True story!) went through 5 admins in under a year. Almost six if one of them had quit before new years instead of just after.

Chat up the office staff. If they're treated like shit, run. If the founder blows through them, run. You can find some of this on linkedin.

You can search specifically for former employers on linkedin. Consider how many of them there are; there shouldn't be lots for an A round startup.

[lucideer]

Some of these are spot on, but some are a little absolutist.

> -If respect isn't reciprocal, run.

Yes, in theory, but this is deceptively difficult to judge accurately on first impression. Some good people are naturally less immediately personable than others and misconceptions are common.

> -If the hiring/interview process is needlessly complicated, run.

This is a bad sign in terms of the company as a whole, and could indicate that you'll need to wade through some needless bureaucracy in your prospective job from time to time, but this is relatively common in bigger companies and doesn't necessarily indicate anything negative about the actual team/leader/interviewer you'll be directly working with/under on a daily basis.

> -If a pattern exists of mistakes (forgot to call, etc),run.

Worth considering, but it seems a little picky to say a hard no based on this alone. Some of the best technical people I've worked with are not necessarily 100% organised administratively 100% of the time.

> -If they're not paying attention [0], run.

This happens far too often. Fully agree. Run!

[partisan]

If you see a video game console, a table top game, or alcohol, run.

[zeemonkee3]

- take home tests/projects longer than a couple hours' worth. Especially before they ask some basic questions such as expected salary or at least a preliminary phone interview.

[zamalek]

Just to add to this awesome answer: it is as much an interview for them as it is for you. Press them with hard questions.

[galistoca]

Most of these only apply to startups since a lot of job interviews at larger companies are done by people who probably won't end up being your manager. It's easy to say "if you see such and such, run", but I doubt you will be able to put it into practice if you were the one in that situation, especially if the job itself is attractive. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a position where you're the one who gave the interview, but from my experience, most of the behaviors that seem to have pissed you off have nothing to do with the quality of the interviewer. It's your choice to "run" every time you get into these situations, but I wouldn't do that if I were you, especially if you're talking about larger companies like Google, Facebook, etc.

[overgard]

I think the empathy thing is huge. If they don't treat you like a person during the interview, you can't expect them to do so after you're hired.

[kintamanimatt]

> -If the recruiter tells you, "The path you're going down will lead to failure unless you do a startup. Frankly, I don't see you doing a startup"... run. Also true story.

Can you explain this one a little bit please? I'm not quite sure I understand the sentiment here.

[chris11]

-If a pattern exists of mistakes (forgot to call, etc), run.

Is this applicable to bigger companies? I've noticed that some companies figure out where to place entry level engineers during or after an offer is made. And then getting a good recruiter seems to come down to luck at some places. I once had an interviewer not show up for a phone interview at one place. But I wouldn't necessarily say that my boss would have been horrible, I don't even know if I was interviewing for a specific team.

[devin]

  -If you only get canned questions, run.
  -If questions are machine gunned without any followups, run.
  -If they're not paying attention [0], run.

I'm surprised to see that many of the answers here don't seem to mention that in order to detect an environment that won't suit you, you ought to have questions for your interviewers.

If the questions you're asking are canned, or _your_ questions are machine gunned, and you don't follow up on the responses of your interviewers you're missing out on an excellent opportunity to get a read on what it's really like to work there. I'll grant you that reading people is not a science, but if don't go any deeper than "So what's it like to work here?", you're missing a big opportunity.

Make your questions unique, so your interviewer has good reason to pay attention. Don't just hit the softballs and nod. If they give you a vague answer, try to get them to be more specific.

For example, follow up "How are team successes and failures treated at $COMPANY?" with "Interesting. Could you give me an example of a specific situation where the team failed, and how it was dealt with?" with "Do you think it was the right response? Do you think there's any room for improvement?"

  -If the interviewer[s] lacks empathy, it's a sign
  somewhere up the chain that something's not right.

I believe this up to a point. As I said before, getting a clear read on someone you've just met is not always going to be easy. Yes, I believe it's a positive sign when your interviewer displays some level of empathy during the interview, but not everyone puts it out there. Don't make the mistake of thinking you know _exactly_ what the other person was thinking, or how they were feeling.

I think a lot of this comes down to going with your gut. Sometimes things are not exactly as advertised, so another piece of advice I'd give you is: Don't overthink it. Human beings have evolved to detect when something is, you know, "a little off". Trust yourself, but attempt to verify.

Finally, if you aren't in a rush, I've almost always been given the opportunity at the end of the interview to "reach out with any additional questions". Let the interview simmer for a day or so, and then take them up on their offer. Think about where you might have seen some hesitation, bases you may not have thought to cover in the initial interview, and see how they respond.

Trying to be clever in detecting a bad workplace neglects one of the most powerful tools at your disposal, your ability to ask questions that'll reveal whether it's a good place for you or not.

[EliRivers]

If they give you an IQ test or similar, run.

That's interesting; it conflicts with one of the few pieces of evidence I have about successful correlation in recruitment. I don't have the study to hand, but I'm sure its conclusions were that people who do well at IQ tests (although they might have been more general intelligence tests rather than specifically IQ tests) tend to make better technical employees (or indeed, almost any kind of employee), and that's it's one of the few actually reliable indicators. As a strong rule of thumb, smart people are better at technical jobs.

What's the thinking behind taking it as a sign of a bad employer?

[Overtonwindow]

The needlessly complicated one I agree with completely. Anyone had to go through a top grading process? Absolute crap in my humble opinion. You jump through a lot of hoops that takes up a lot of time, not just of you, but a lot of people in the process, and at the end of the day you don't get the best candidate. You get the best actor. I work for years for a major defense contractor that try top grading, and it was an abysmal failure. We got good liars, we did not get good employees.

[cylinder]

If they ask you to come back and make a "presentation" to a group (i.e. work on a project and come present it, non-technical role), run. Especially if they don't pay you for your time.

[Havoc]

>-If they give you an IQ test or similar, run.

Not always though. e.g. For my previous employer it was par for the course to run everyone through multiple rounds of psychometric testing. And again during a major promotion cycle. Nothing wrong with it in my view - in fact if it saves me the hassle of dealing with a slow colleague then I'm all for it.

[salsakran]

On some level, you never really know. People often behave differently when interviewing (or trying to close you) than normally, let alone during stressful periods.

The low hanging fruit here is:

* ALWAYS spend time with your future boss prior to accepting. Ideally try to spend as much time as you reasonably can. If this isn't possible push back pretty hard about why. Your direct manager is usually the biggest reason for your unhappiness at a job. "People don't leave jobs, they leave bosses" is a cliche for a reason.

* If people seem unhappy when you interview, don't assume it's just how they feel that day.

* Make sure you get a sense for the culture and whether you want to be part of it. If you're not into constant group activity, make sure you're not joining a hyper-intense "everyone hangs out with each other all the time" sort of place. Conversely if you're new in town, don't join a company where everyone is focused on working hyper efficiently and bouncing to go home to their families. Neither is right or wrong, but they can definitely be right or wrong for you.

* If you're connected, track down people who left the company and ask about your future boss. Were they hard to work with? Do people like them? If you have friends at the company (ideally, not reporting to your potential boss) ask about how your boss (and the department) is perceived by the rest of the company.

* Hit up linkedin and track down ex employees, ideally in the same job role. See where they ended up, and hit them up and ask why.

Good luck!

[Homunculiheaded]

Here's an interview question I always ask that has worked pretty well:

"If you could wave a wand and instantly change one thing about this company/job/team, what would it be?"

This is similar to "what is wrong" but frames it in a positive light, so people are more open and creative.

If the answer is anything about people "I wish communication was better", "It would help if more people were on board for this project", "A change in management wouldn't hurt, haha j/k" etc. That's a red flag.

If it's about non-people "I wish we didn't have so much legacy code", "I would love it if we could get our testing setup better", "There are no good places to get coffee around" that's a good sign that aren't major people problems.

If they can't think of one, that's a real cause for concern!

This is one of my favorite questions in general because what people wish for tells a lot in many ways about the major problems, but without people begin guarded. They're fantasizing not venting.

[geoelectric]

One basic way is to ask your interviewers what they like about their job. You're going to get a positive response, but is it hand-wavy or specific? Is it too specific, like they're just cherry-picking the one thing that keeps them employed there? Is there light in their eyes or are they reading a script?

Another way is to ask how decisions get made. Again, the specific answer is going to probably be something pretty non-controversial, so look for the subtleties.

Sometimes it's just obvious that it's too risky. I had one interview where the hiring manager's boss managed to freeze him out of his own loop. I ran from that one.

Also, you should be very skeptical if you felt like your interviews with individual contributors were lukewarm or poor but you still get the offer. That's very possibly a boss overriding flags from his team, or a team that's deadened enough to not throw flags in the first place. If you don't feel the interview went well, trust your gut--might not be just your fault.

[phonebanshee]

Yes - and be very direct about this. Ask them "So why do you like this job? Why is this a great place to work?" I've had someone pause, look at me and tell me why it was a bad place and I should run away.

[throwawaytrain]

I too have recently started a new job. I had a phone screen with the hiring manager, then met with him for a two-hour 1-on-1 interview. Some time later I was given the offer and accepted it.

I never met any of my future team members. I asked the hiring manager during the interview to introduce me to the team, but he said this wasn't going to be necessary.

Now, a few months into the job, I must say that I've never worked on any team composed of such antisocial people. Pretty much no one here communicates effectively. Cliques are demarcated along racial lines; there Chinese and Indian groups don't really talk to each other, and don't "accept new members" that don't speak their language.

This is the loneliest place I'd ever worked. What's surprising is that I never thought I could be so lonely at work of all places.

So, lesson learned: if you aren't allowed to do a meet-and-greet with the team before accepting an offer, don't even think about taking it!

[smileysteve]

> he said this wasn't going to be necessary.

That's the pointer right there, he sees interviews as one way and not a two way street.

I guess that you'll know next time to demand your needs whether they are deemed "necessary" for offer letter or not.

[balls187]

> Chinese and Indian groups don't really talk to each other, and don't "accept new members" that don't speak their language.

This is pretty common among both racial groups.

And, if we're talking about the US, it was common across pretty much every ethnic group that emigrated here.

[Overtonwindow]

Zappos? Sorry, bad joke. I agree completely. It's important to meet the people you're going to be working with to make sure they fit with you. On the other hand, a lot of these cliques are a reason some departments do poorly. There should be no cliques. Yes, it is important, but colleagues should not have to like one another to be professional and do a good job. If each person does their best, is professional, there's little reason why they can't produce good work.

[Zyst]

This is very people dependant. I'm fairly anti social and that sounds like a plus, although I mostly refuse to take any job that isn't remote nowadays.

[grandalf]

Bosses can fall short in a lot of ways. While your intuitions might clue you in to some failings, others are very difficult to spot. My advice would be:

- Do the others on the team seem happy? Did you get to meet any during the interview process? Do they seem to be happy to work there and comfortable in the environment?

- Does everyone seem to get quiet or smile officiously around the boss? That's a big warning sign. It probably means the boss is a bit of a tyrant or maintains an unhealthy power differential with the team. There is absolutely no room for this kind of posturing in a startup.

- Do you witness anyone coming to the boss for help with something? If so, and if the boss responds in a positive way, it's a great sign. A good boss is someone who is there to help everyone succeed and lend expertise when asked.

- Does the boss say anything disparaging about the other team members during the interview? Look out for indignant, judgy sorts of comments that indicate that the boss feels shortchanged by the team he/she has (unless you are explicitly being hired to single-handedly turn the team around).

- Is the hiring manager, founder, etc., transparent about runway, the cap table, and turnover rates? Playing it close to the vest about any of the three is a very bad sign.

- Do you see any VCs or investors stopping by uninvited and just hanging out? If so that's a good sign and means there is transparency with investors (which doesn't happen in all startups).

- Are there "big company sounding" organizational titles like "Senior Director", "Senior VP of x", "Senior Engineer", etc? If the company has fewer than 200 employees, titles like these indicate a wide array of culture problems, usually starting at the top.

[djloche]

The best way is to interview your future boss in the interview process. Ask about their management style. Ask about how many meetings they are in each day, and the average meeting length. Ask about how they stay organized, ask about what tools or systems they use. Ask about what recent technologies they're excited about. Ask about the team and the individual team members.

When you are interviewing somewhere, treat it as if they are trying to convince you and you need to ask a ton of questions to figure out if they are a good fit or not.

Frame these questions in positive, generous light so you seem like you genuinely want to work for them and are just trying to get all the details.

"What is the thing that most pleasantly surprised you when you started working here?"

[noah__]

I have about 12 years of exp. Have worked with all kinds of companies startups\bluechips\valley\wall st etc.

Over time I have reduced paying attention to what they are dangling in front of me, be it compensation or interesting stuff I want to work on.

I now mostly pay attention to the people. Specifically the quality AND loyalty of people to the firm\manager\founder etc. The AND is critical. If its just one or the other I walk. So for example, if its a 3 year old team and there is no one "smart" who has lasted atleast 2 years its a good sign to walk. If its a 6 year old firm and there is no one who has lasted atleast 2 years it's a great sign to walk. If there are people who have lasted and aren't "quality" its also not worth it. My definition of quality is they are smarter than me, or have done something I have respect for.

If its a new company I don't work with them unless I personally know the people involved.

Why these rules?

Cause if the people are "right" the interesting work and adequate compensation follows. Doesn't matter if the project fails your time with such folk is never wasted.

[crispyambulance]

No, No, No, NO, No (to all the tips and shortcuts)

Your first job out of college has a high probability of being a bad fit and this is especially true if you're desperate to just get hired. So, it didn't work out... happens a lot. The important thing to do is to figure out what YOU want out of a job/workplace and to assess what that potential job can do for your career.

I think its a waste of time to try to figure out some minimal set of "red flags" to use for future interviews. Just look at the big picture, there's no single red-flag that will tell you definitively that a place is miserable (nor is there a single observation that signals an awesome place-- foozball and snacks won't make up for asshole-driven management).

Perhaps even more important than what you observe during an interview is to really examine your own needs and expectations. SOoooo many people are unhappy WHEREVER they go and always blame it on management, co-workers, the industry or whatever. This kind of serial discontent is a sign that the there's something wrong with the individual rather than their workplace(s).

[tomtomAmazon]

Lots of good advice here. I'd like to add a key phrase thrown around a lot, 'A-players'. As in, "we only hire A-Players for our team." Or "Our team is made of only A-Players. If we hire anything less then the world ends." Beware when managers/cofounders/leads/directors say this. Your bullshit detector should be going off at this point in the process because what they're really saying is that they only hire people like them, egotistical, shallow, puts others down, don't ask for help since you're suppose to know everything, expect them to talk about themselves ALL the time, expect a lot of bullshit (i noticed that a lot of 'A-players' resemble the 'bro' attitude). It is difficult on the first 'pass' to avoid such a situation especially without experience. A company I worked for explicitly targeted young developers because of the long hours, cheap labor (coder monkey?), the koolaid is easier to drink without experience. good luck out there.

[fma]

I've read through most of the answers...and this is one of the few times I'll say it but most of the responses are flat out wrong. Employees at a toxic company will bullsh-t the answer. I know because I've been the one to bullsh-t. The company sucked so bad, the turnover rate was high and the ones left said anything to hire good employees to try to turn projects around. It wasn't that the coworkers were bad, or the managers were bad. But it was executives with unreasonable timelines.

So how do you prevent this from happening? I personally avoid a company where I don't know someone in it, or know someone that knows someone.

Additionally, there's a nice hidden feature of LinkedIn. You can search for people who used to work there. At one company I interviewed at, I searched and found that those who used to work there...the majority left within a year. It tells you something. I had a sense during the interview that the turnover was high, and again they would BS me about their wonderful culture. Then I spoke to someone who used to work there and he confirmed my thoughts. Oh yeah, the fact they were going to throw a lot of money at me raised a red flag too (the toxic company I was at threw a lot of money at people too).

Good luck.

[fapjacks]

I always ask my go-to "red flag" question to all my interviewers. Remember that you are the one that determines what red flags even mean. This works on everyone but the CEO:

"If you could change one thing without veto, what would it be?"

If the person describes a technical problem, that's usually a good sign. Long silence is usually good (but can also be a very bad sign if they just can't pick one thing). Trivial nitpicks are a good sign. Any complaints about communication are a very big red flag. Also any complaints about leadership. Obviously, if the problem your interviewer describes is repeated by any other interviewers, that is a big, red flag.

Piece of advice when firing this atomic weapon at your interviewer: Do not fill the silence while they think with any talk. Let them think. Let the silence hang. That makes people more likely to dig deep for something they really don't like.

[Ologn]

> "If you could change one thing without veto, what would it be?" > Any complaints about communication are a very big red flag. Also any complaints about leadership. Obviously, if the problem your interviewer describes is repeated by any other interviewers, that is a big, red flag.

I agree. When they ask me what questions I have for them, one of my first ones is "What would you say is the most positive aspect, or aspects of working here, and what would you say is one of the biggest challenges". As he said, if (check) the answer is "communication challenges" and (check) you hear this from two or three people, that's definitely a red flag.

Another thing is if you are scheduled for an interview at 3 PM, and you are kept waiting for half an hour, and are then told that a fire came up they had to take care of, or they're disorganized and the interview fell through the cracks - and then they tell you one of the main people you had to talk to is not there and that you'll have to come back to talk to them - that sort of thing is obviously a red flag too.

[JoshTriplett]

If you were the interviewer, how would you answer that question yourself?

[atom-morgan]

Questions:

- What do you hate about your job?

- How unlimited is unlimited vacation?

- What's the mean/median number of vacation days taken last year?

- How have you shown that you value your employees?

- How do you handle disagreements with potential hires?

- If the team is split on a technical issue, how would this be resolved?

Company bullshit (bad signs):

- "We want people who want to work here. If salary is important we aren't for you."

Uncomfortable answers to any of the questions, run!

[techman9]

The first one is especially important, I find. When I ask the question, "What do you dislike most about your job?" or "If there was one thing you could change about the work environment?", I expect an interviewer to have an immediate answer prepared. If they don't, I assume that they either lack critical thinking skills and are unable to independently drive change or are expected to just follow orders. I don't have any desire to work at a company where management does not respect input from employees and employees are not encouraged to think about how things could be improved.

[codingdave]

Ask them directly -- don't phrase it "Hey, are you an asshole?", but ask them questions that will help inform you of their approach to the organization:

1) What is your leadership style?

2) How do you resolve conflicts on the team?

3) Tell me about the communication style of the team.

If you get a chance to talk to team members without the boss being present, ask similar questions - conflict resolution, communication, collaboration styles, etc. This should give you enough information to judge for yourself if it is a healthy team environment, or not.

[BurningFrog]

When I'm interviewing people, I won't come out and say what's bad about the place, but when asked I will be honest with a future peer.

I think a lot of programmers are the same, so I'd ask the non managers interviewing me what's the place is like to work at.

But... it's easy to "fight the last war" about things like this. So if for your next job, you're 100% focused on finding a boss that's a decent human, you'll probably succeed. But something other major will be wrong.

[edwcar13]

I previously left a company that I thought was great until I realized they just wanted cheap work and a moldable individual for both emotion and creativity.

I too just got out of college and tried to find my first job out of school and took the first offer. These are the signs that I picked up on.

- Arrived to interview to find that what I applied for was not what I was interviewing for ... RUN! - When trying to get a straight answer about benefits or how long individual training may be and getting a lot of "I'll get back to you" and no one does... RUN

- When waiting for your interviewers and recruitment has to come in and ask you if you have already spoken to your interviewers (i.e. their late or no show) ... RUN either they are way to up their own ass or just terrible at time management which if it's your future boss means they will have no time for you

- Last one promise, when interviewing and you get asked questions that you know the answer you gave to be 100% and they say it's wrong and tell you an answer that isn't correct. Run!

That interviewer or interviewers indirectly just told you that they dont follow or are going against what the documentation stateted.(in my case how elasticsearch is configured)

I.e. you will work in an environment that will leave you with knowledge that is incorrect and useless to use in another interview.

[HelloNurse]

Apart from egregious assholes and dysfunctional relationships (like the mentioned husband and wife teams), there are milder and more "diffuse" kinds of toxic environment.

For example: within the company, IT is a second class citizen compared to production, so as a new developer you would start at the bottom of the bottom with no valid career perspectives. Low budget, bad offices, low pay, appearance of overwork are clear signs.

For example: aberrant company culture. Excessive secrecy and/or security measures (who do they think they are?), extravagant recreational resources (are they actually working?), excessive luxury (not bad by itself, but you want them to spend that money on your salary), excessive conviviality, etc.

There is a meta-warning sign about company culture: refusal to show working conditions and procedures to you because of conscious "discretion" and subconscious shame. Also, you could like, accept as normal, or justify because they make sense in context some of the bad attitudes you are aware of, failing to see they are a problem.

[AnimalMuppet]

When I interviewed for my current job, the whole (4 person) team did the interview at once. Several times they talked smack to each other in the interview - not mean, just having fun. Well, I can enjoy that, so I talked a bit of smack to them during the interview. They hired my anyway.

When it's not done in malice, that can be an interesting indicator. It means that the people on the team trust each other - trust that they can say such things and have it received in the right spirit, and trust that the one saying it isn't saying it in malice.

I wouldn't make this the only indicator, but it's an interesting data point...

[MalcolmDiggs]

When I walk into a company (for an interview), I try to get a good look at the faces of the developers there, and gauge whether or not they seem happy. I figure "In 6 months, my disposition is likely to be the average of the ones in this room right now". So if the average person is happy, I'll probably be happy too. If everyone is sleep-deprived, pissed off, and miserable, I'm probably gonna be that way too.

I always try to go out of my way to meet the team and shake their hands (even if the interviewer didn't plan for me to meet anyone). You can gauge a lot from just a brief interaction with people.

[woodcut]

You're looking for personality flaws more than anything, it's hard it detect them if they're charismatic enough to paper over their lies.

First off, protect yourself, ask to see the contract, guarantee any agreements for future pay/bonuses are in there, the contract must specify working hours, time off and notice period etc. Ask to see the resume's of the team you would be working with.

Orange flags come to equipment, books, resources. A good company will give you whatever you need.

Red flags are arrogance, delusion, recklessness, bullying.

Ask tough technical questions, see if they admit they don't know it or rubbish the question.

Ask about ventures, projects things that went wrong, do they blame everyone but themselves? How many people have left in the last 12 months? Ask to speak to them.

How much runway do they have left? less than 3 months is a massive no. Has anyone ever been paid late?

Honestly, if they're smart enough you can't tell until you're knee deep.