Hopefully someday I'll be such a sought-after resource that I could grill a company in the way this post suggests.
As it is, I choose my interview battles carefully. One of my favorite questions I ask is whether my position is new (rare for my situation) or if I am replacing someone who left.
This very naturally opens up a conversation about expectations from both sides. If someone separated, why do the interviewers think it didn't work out? If this is a new position, how do they imagine the first year?
Suddenly you're talking about culture, performance and policies without having asked directly about any of those topics.
Tell me about your hiring process — how many rounds, how many interviewers? Is there anything special about your interview process I should know? Are coding interviews on a whiteboard or laptop? What resources do candidates have access to while coding? Assuming the process goes well, how long does your hiring process typically take? How long do candidates who are given offers have to decide on an offer?
are perfectly fine, because they're simple and objective, and can be immediately answered by the company (if they have their shit together on any meaningful level). But questions like:
What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview? Why do you think your current process does that effectively? What biases have you decided to accept in your hiring process? Which are you trying to change?
would be a red flag, because really now, it's not like employers have huge swaths of time available to holistically explain the raison d'être of their hiring process and how it got that way. If anything it's the exact opposite -- if they company is successful, then their people have almost no time at all to wax philosophic which each and every candidate about such topics.
So to ask questions of the latter sort strikes me as a bit obtuse.
Companies above garage size literally employ people to answer candidate questions. If the company hasn't invested the time to answer "What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview?" and its recruiters don't have a simple, objective answer, they should stop interviewing and go answer that before they start again.
A simple answer is something like, "We want to figure out whether a candidate can do the work we need them to do. We do that by giving candidates sample work problems which are streamlined versions of problems we've actually solved at the company in the past. People we hire are more likely to still be employed with us than they are at our competitors after a year. We know we don't hire enough women and URMs into technical roles, and we're instituting a rule that at least one woman or URM candidate needs to be interviewed for each open role."
I am in favor of asking 'Are questions asked in the interview a true reflection of what I would be doing if I was hired.' If the answer is no, then you have more questions that revolve around 'how they evaluate best-fit'.
The tech interview process is broken and change requires challenging and questioning the status quo.
I agree, the latter batch of questions strike me as terrible things to ask.
> What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview? Why do you think your current process does that effectively?
Unless the interviewer is from HR they probably don't know (or care) much about the answers, and unless you're interviewing for a position in HR, knowing the answers won't tell you much about whether to take the position. So why ask at all?
Questions like these are analogous to bike-shedding - asking about what's most visible to you at that moment, rather than about what's important.
-How much overtime is done and is it paid? Are weekends required? Are people asked to volunteer for a weekend shift? Do you have "deployment days" where people have to stay until/past midnight not accounted anywhere?
-Who is going to be my manager/technical lead? Can I talk to them?
-Is this a full time position, or full time supplemental (ex: IBM) Oh, it's full time suplemental, is overtime paid? Do I have vacation days and health insurance?
-Can you show me the exact spot where I'll be sitting?
-Can I take two weeks to decide on the offer considering I have currently three more interviews in progress?
A trap I see promoted by recruiters and companies with poor culture (typically big corporate settings) is to not ask any probing questions.
Interviewers should have no problems answering questions about their work culture unless it is unhealthy or broken.
I was once told I was egotistical after the interview (because of my probing questions) but was offered and accepted the job anyway - it was a admirable brand. Quickly found myself regretting. My questions were based around work culture (Is this a new position? Have many people have left recently? etc.)
Discovered the department was toxic, aggressive members with terrible traits. Structurally very secure from legal and HR so unlikely to change anything.
Thankfully was early in my career and left. Lesson? Take the time to thoroughly question the interviewer and reject any company that seems avoiding. Take the advice from this article.
Of all my interview questions[0], the favorite is "what is the biggest technical thorn in the company's side." It gets a different response from every person, which gives an interesting perspective of a company.
Another question that yields different responses from everyone that I like to ask: "what is your more favorite and what is your least favorite thing about working here?"
One thing I wish I'd asked before starting the job I currently have is how much IT likes to dictate what you can and cannot do on your work machine.
They block iCloud, Messages.app, have some horrible resource-heavy anti-virus, and a ton of other restrictions on my machine that impair my ability to get my job done.
This. If I were told I had to VPN from a brick laptop into a VM, both widows machines, with heavily restricted permissions, I would have cut the interview short.
Is your team diverse? Is diversity a priority, and if so, what do you do to promote it?
Am I the only person to call BS on this one? How this is likely going to be interpreted by an interviewer is "can I excuse my poorer skills/performance by capitalizing on my gender/race?", so you will get a politically correct answer like "diversity is among our core values and we promote it by giving preference to <...> among the candidates with equal skills and backgrounds" and will never hear from them again.
I mean, diversity is a legitimate value, but asking this during an interview when you are trying to advertise yourself as a valuable addition to the team, is a bit strange IMO.
I care about diversity. I've had experience with enough teams to know that teams that are homogenous (in whatever way -- this isn't exclusive to white guys, though that's the obvious example) tend to have problems.
This isn't an assumption I would make immediately, but I am not a hiring manager, so I can see your point. Perhaps ask about how they choose to encourage inclusivity?
This only covers one aspect of managing diversity though. Other than practising active diverse hiring though, some companies are very active in diverse communities which naturally leads to diverse hires.
I think it is absolutely an important thing to try to delve into, but yeah, maybe try to be strategic about it.
When I evaluate a job, I usually optimize for a few things (position, location, salary, tech) but very TOP of the list (i.e., non-negotiable) is what my sense of happiness as a contributor/developer will be.
A very good metric to this (for me) is lines of code. Take where they say their product is (in terms of features etc) and then weigh that agains their LOC (if they're willing to give it to you)... If you get a sense that the LOC is far too much wrt the capability of the product (experience/intuition will give you a feel for this over time, as you start paying attention to the metric)... this will give you a good sense of how many late nights you'll be spending trying to fix some nasty bugs or contend with spaghettini instead of delivering real value.
Experience and intuition give you approximately no useful, valid "feel" for how much LOC is appropriate for a given thing, with the possible exception of outliers or incredibly trivial programs.
We don't value LOC as a measure of productivity because it is a terrible metric to use. That doesn't change just because a person is on the developer rather than the manager side of things.
If you ask too many of these questions you're going to set off red flags that you're an entitled person who's looking to receive more value than you contribute. I'd focus more on asking about the company's future plans and strategies.
...which is pretty sad to think. You're entitled because you want to ask a set of questions that takes maybe a few hours tops because you want to evaluate this place you are going to spend more time at than almost anywhere else for some number years into the future? It's crazy that we spend more time investigating what vacuum or small kitchen appliance to buy than we do on one of the most important decisions we ever make.
A lot of these work culture and life and tech questions can be backed into.
My series of questions when I get the chance to talk to an engineer on the team I'm interviewing for is just this, "What's a normal day at work look like for you? Not a fire drill day or anything crazy. Just walk me through what you think of as your routine."
And once you can get that conversation going, you can pretty easily suss out the answer to very many questions in the article without coming across as even really asking questions, let alone seeming like a special snowflake.
Some questions can be more direct than others. But I think many of them can be figured out through a healthy conversation in the interview process.
If you can't engage someone in that kind of a conversation someone ought to be seeing some red flags.
Also, you can ask them differently. So instead of "How late do people usually arrive/stay?" you can ask "How early do most people get to the office? Am I encouraged to come early?"
One dev I worked with asked the following question at the companies he interviewed at (he got offers from all of them, btw): "What percentage of your co-workers would you like to see fired?"
Most interviewers responded in the ten percent range. One notable exception was a place where they responded with "fifty percent" -- I can't imagine what it was like there.
Amazed he got offers from all of them. If someone asked this during an interview I would most definitely not give them an offer. It seems indicative of a vengeful and toxic mentality.
I would give joke answer with random number. There is no way I would give you honest answer to that question, if would indeed wanted to see some of my colleges fired. You are testing interviewer personality, not the company there.
Without other information, 50% may mean a lot of bad colleges or arrogant self-aggrandizing interviewer.
>What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview? Why do you think your current process does that effectively?
I asked this to my netflix interviewer, he just mumbled some incoherent answer about "netflix values" and didn't answer my question. He seemed to get angry when I reworded my question and asked him again.
Seems like they have no idea why they are following that process, just blindly copying "industry best practices" .
Netflix is very (in)famous for their culture deck. I could understand they got a little piqued. Assuming you did not read it before the interview, they are looking for: good judgment, communicative, impactful, curious, innovative, courageous, passionate, honest, not selfish, performant, smart, professional team players. Hah.
I am on the fence about the second part of your question. On the one hand: If they are free to grill you about hypotheticals and process, why can't you do the same? On the other hand, should you really? It is a very cheeky ("courageous") question that would catch me off guard. "Who are you to question the very job interview we are currently having? How is this relevant to your prospective job? Current interview not up to par for you?".
A reason for that might be because if they tell you straightforward, then it gives candidates a chance to "fake it" just for the job when they might not be the best candidate.
It's going to depend a lot on the individual interviewer how well they can answer that question. If recruiting and the hiring manager don't both have good answers to that question, though, that's a big red flag.
Note that the questions re: business plan are more appropriate for a startup unless you’re applying for an executive role, in which case you aren’t interviewing in this way anyway. (Interviews for exec level positions are MUCH more thorough/prolonged and take a lot of time given the $$$ and responsibility involved).
Also, the questions re: benefits etc. are more well-suited towards the recruiter you’re working with or HR; it is highly unlikely that the hiring manager knows enough about those things to answer your question effectively.
Everything else is pretty good, though I wouldn’t ask it at once (overwhelming and a negative social signal)
Why would you interview at a company if you don't know what they do?
Interviewing is a chore, I'm not going to invest my time in doing it unless I think I'll enjoy being there, which requires at least approving of what the company does.
(I would be a little less choosy if I didn't have a current job, but still probably don't want to write software I have strong moral objections too)
Interviewed by some startups (Berlin) I have been asked if I know or to explain them what they are doing... and the funniest thing is they were serious.
I think the "Team" and "Tech" section are interesting, it's the kind of question that you genuinely need to know, but the interviewer might find them a bit "personal".
One thing I would like to figure out is how often I can ask for help. Any ideas how to phrase that ?
I worked in a small company where I was the only programmer and had to figure everything on my own, plus search engines, IRC, StackOverFlow. Then an interviewer at Intel was mildly unsatisfied that I didn't ask about a test question that wasn't entirely clear. Also, one company where I worked very briefly considered question asked a sign of weakness.
As a founder who sits in on all interviews I agree, but also believe that every question/answer is an opportunity to show more personality — on either side — and as such welcome it.
[+] [-] loteck|8 years ago|reply
As it is, I choose my interview battles carefully. One of my favorite questions I ask is whether my position is new (rare for my situation) or if I am replacing someone who left.
This very naturally opens up a conversation about expectations from both sides. If someone separated, why do the interviewers think it didn't work out? If this is a new position, how do they imagine the first year?
Suddenly you're talking about culture, performance and policies without having asked directly about any of those topics.
[+] [-] kafkaesq|8 years ago|reply
Tell me about your hiring process — how many rounds, how many interviewers? Is there anything special about your interview process I should know? Are coding interviews on a whiteboard or laptop? What resources do candidates have access to while coding? Assuming the process goes well, how long does your hiring process typically take? How long do candidates who are given offers have to decide on an offer?
are perfectly fine, because they're simple and objective, and can be immediately answered by the company (if they have their shit together on any meaningful level). But questions like:
What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview? Why do you think your current process does that effectively? What biases have you decided to accept in your hiring process? Which are you trying to change?
would be a red flag, because really now, it's not like employers have huge swaths of time available to holistically explain the raison d'être of their hiring process and how it got that way. If anything it's the exact opposite -- if they company is successful, then their people have almost no time at all to wax philosophic which each and every candidate about such topics.
So to ask questions of the latter sort strikes me as a bit obtuse.
[+] [-] kevinr|8 years ago|reply
A simple answer is something like, "We want to figure out whether a candidate can do the work we need them to do. We do that by giving candidates sample work problems which are streamlined versions of problems we've actually solved at the company in the past. People we hire are more likely to still be employed with us than they are at our competitors after a year. We know we don't hire enough women and URMs into technical roles, and we're instituting a rule that at least one woman or URM candidate needs to be interviewed for each open role."
[+] [-] deskamess|8 years ago|reply
I am in favor of asking 'Are questions asked in the interview a true reflection of what I would be doing if I was hired.' If the answer is no, then you have more questions that revolve around 'how they evaluate best-fit'.
The tech interview process is broken and change requires challenging and questioning the status quo.
[+] [-] fenomas|8 years ago|reply
> What are you trying to figure out about a candidate in an interview? Why do you think your current process does that effectively?
Unless the interviewer is from HR they probably don't know (or care) much about the answers, and unless you're interviewing for a position in HR, knowing the answers won't tell you much about whether to take the position. So why ask at all?
Questions like these are analogous to bike-shedding - asking about what's most visible to you at that moment, rather than about what's important.
[+] [-] quickben|8 years ago|reply
-The person I'm replacing, why did they leave?
-How much overtime is done and is it paid? Are weekends required? Are people asked to volunteer for a weekend shift? Do you have "deployment days" where people have to stay until/past midnight not accounted anywhere?
-Who is going to be my manager/technical lead? Can I talk to them?
-Is this a full time position, or full time supplemental (ex: IBM) Oh, it's full time suplemental, is overtime paid? Do I have vacation days and health insurance?
-Can you show me the exact spot where I'll be sitting?
-Can I take two weeks to decide on the offer considering I have currently three more interviews in progress?
[+] [-] CommanderData|8 years ago|reply
Interviewers should have no problems answering questions about their work culture unless it is unhealthy or broken.
I was once told I was egotistical after the interview (because of my probing questions) but was offered and accepted the job anyway - it was a admirable brand. Quickly found myself regretting. My questions were based around work culture (Is this a new position? Have many people have left recently? etc.)
Discovered the department was toxic, aggressive members with terrible traits. Structurally very secure from legal and HR so unlikely to change anything.
Thankfully was early in my career and left. Lesson? Take the time to thoroughly question the interviewer and reject any company that seems avoiding. Take the advice from this article.
Never had a bad role since.
[+] [-] stephengillie|8 years ago|reply
[0] http://gilgamech.com/docs/resume/interview.txt
[+] [-] uiri|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben174|8 years ago|reply
They block iCloud, Messages.app, have some horrible resource-heavy anti-virus, and a ton of other restrictions on my machine that impair my ability to get my job done.
[+] [-] base698|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dajohnson89|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] santaclaus|8 years ago|reply
At least you get to use macOS at work, mad jealous!
[+] [-] john_moscow|8 years ago|reply
Am I the only person to call BS on this one? How this is likely going to be interpreted by an interviewer is "can I excuse my poorer skills/performance by capitalizing on my gender/race?", so you will get a politically correct answer like "diversity is among our core values and we promote it by giving preference to <...> among the candidates with equal skills and backgrounds" and will never hear from them again.
I mean, diversity is a legitimate value, but asking this during an interview when you are trying to advertise yourself as a valuable addition to the team, is a bit strange IMO.
[+] [-] venantius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foopod|8 years ago|reply
This only covers one aspect of managing diversity though. Other than practising active diverse hiring though, some companies are very active in diverse communities which naturally leads to diverse hires.
I think it is absolutely an important thing to try to delve into, but yeah, maybe try to be strategic about it.
[+] [-] kevinr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsgfhasgjklas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wellpast|8 years ago|reply
A very good metric to this (for me) is lines of code. Take where they say their product is (in terms of features etc) and then weigh that agains their LOC (if they're willing to give it to you)... If you get a sense that the LOC is far too much wrt the capability of the product (experience/intuition will give you a feel for this over time, as you start paying attention to the metric)... this will give you a good sense of how many late nights you'll be spending trying to fix some nasty bugs or contend with spaghettini instead of delivering real value.
[+] [-] sidlls|8 years ago|reply
We don't value LOC as a measure of productivity because it is a terrible metric to use. That doesn't change just because a person is on the developer rather than the manager side of things.
[+] [-] exabrial|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kluny|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayonetz|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianamartin|8 years ago|reply
My series of questions when I get the chance to talk to an engineer on the team I'm interviewing for is just this, "What's a normal day at work look like for you? Not a fire drill day or anything crazy. Just walk me through what you think of as your routine."
And once you can get that conversation going, you can pretty easily suss out the answer to very many questions in the article without coming across as even really asking questions, let alone seeming like a special snowflake.
Some questions can be more direct than others. But I think many of them can be figured out through a healthy conversation in the interview process.
If you can't engage someone in that kind of a conversation someone ought to be seeing some red flags.
[+] [-] ra7|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devmunchies|8 years ago|reply
Makes you sound better.
[+] [-] s73ver_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CommanderData|8 years ago|reply
The interviewer should never worry about being asked ANY questions about their culture unless it is unhealthy or broken.
[+] [-] kabdib|8 years ago|reply
Most interviewers responded in the ten percent range. One notable exception was a place where they responded with "fifty percent" -- I can't imagine what it was like there.
[+] [-] ramzyo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watwut|8 years ago|reply
Without other information, 50% may mean a lot of bad colleges or arrogant self-aggrandizing interviewer.
[+] [-] dominotw|8 years ago|reply
I asked this to my netflix interviewer, he just mumbled some incoherent answer about "netflix values" and didn't answer my question. He seemed to get angry when I reworded my question and asked him again.
Seems like they have no idea why they are following that process, just blindly copying "industry best practices" .
[+] [-] leakydropout|8 years ago|reply
https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 (17 million + views)
I am on the fence about the second part of your question. On the one hand: If they are free to grill you about hypotheticals and process, why can't you do the same? On the other hand, should you really? It is a very cheeky ("courageous") question that would catch me off guard. "Who are you to question the very job interview we are currently having? How is this relevant to your prospective job? Current interview not up to par for you?".
[+] [-] milkytron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nunez|8 years ago|reply
Also, the questions re: benefits etc. are more well-suited towards the recruiter you’re working with or HR; it is highly unlikely that the hiring manager knows enough about those things to answer your question effectively.
Everything else is pretty good, though I wouldn’t ask it at once (overwhelming and a negative social signal)
[+] [-] avip|8 years ago|reply
I usually ask, in no particular order: What do you do, how do you do it, how can I help you, can I remote.
[+] [-] toast0|8 years ago|reply
Interviewing is a chore, I'm not going to invest my time in doing it unless I think I'll enjoy being there, which requires at least approving of what the company does.
(I would be a little less choosy if I didn't have a current job, but still probably don't want to write software I have strong moral objections too)
[+] [-] expertentipp|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|8 years ago|reply
Three things I want to learn from a candidate:
- Does she/he feel responsible?
- Does she/he self reflect and learn or blame others?
- Can he/she solve problems on her/his own?
Any ideas on how to find out?
[+] [-] kthejoker2|8 years ago|reply
Some examples https://www.themuse.com/advice/30-behavioral-interview-quest...
[+] [-] peteretep|8 years ago|reply
Knowledge is power: Why are they hiring? https://codeformore.com/knowledge-power-hiring-new-developer...
[+] [-] yangshun|8 years ago|reply
https://github.com/yangshun/tech-interview-handbook/blob/mas...
[+] [-] emilecantin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjalfi|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b0rsuk|8 years ago|reply
I worked in a small company where I was the only programmer and had to figure everything on my own, plus search engines, IRC, StackOverFlow. Then an interviewer at Intel was mildly unsatisfied that I didn't ask about a test question that wasn't entirely clear. Also, one company where I worked very briefly considered question asked a sign of weakness.
[+] [-] eradicatethots|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arielm|8 years ago|reply