What questions do you have?
“What questions do you have?” Is a question that is guaranteed on any job interview.
“And if a candidate has no questions, then the question arises about the candidate,” a friend from Silicon Valley HR told me in a conversation about job-searching in the US.
To ask a HR, a manager, a potential colleague about something is not just a good form and an opportunity to leave the necessary professional impression of yourself. The right questions help you to understand how comfortable you will be working in a team and whether the company will be able to satisfy your career interests.
On this subject, I recently found an entertaining questiontik interviewer KeyValues.com . For those who do not speak English sufficiently, I decided to make a translation.
At the interface of programming and interpersonal relationships
His creator, Lynne Tye, had a very different, but always interpersonal-focused professional experience before switching to web programming. She has worked as an operations manager at Homejoy, where she has more than 150 people under her leadership, and has a degree in neurology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
')
Having worked remotely for several years as a web developer, Lin learned a lot about the diversity of work styles, team dynamics and engineering cultures. During this time, she clearly understood what she wanted, and decided that it would be easy for her to find the right job in the right team.
I sat down to make a list of companies I would like to join, and I will tell you: it was completely useless. <...>
I wanted to know who I would work with. However, company pages and job descriptions were completely useless. I phoned several recruiters on the phone, and none of them could answer how engineers are involved in product development, whether they prefer to work quickly or bring the code to perfection. This explains why programmers prefer to join companies that already know someone. <...>
I created Key Values as a place where engineering teams will be able to talk about their culture and how to translate their values into everyday practice, because all this is important to know before passing a technical screen interview and face-to-face interview to the company .
So what questions to ask and how to decipher the answers?
On the main page of the Key Values website you are invited to choose the most important working moments for you. For convenience, they are divided into 6 thematic groups: daily work, team values, healthy environment, programming, career growth, company strategy.
I tried to choose the most common and important aspects of the workflow from my point of view. Further you are waiting for questions that Lin proposes to ask at interviews at my request.
Work and friendship
What promotes friendly relations within your team?
Most people do not recognize that the members of their team are not close to each other or they lack teamwork. Asking about what the team is connected to, you will get a clear idea of how friendly and united everyone is. Members of one team attend conferences together, and members of the other were friends before joining the company. Perhaps you will learn about joint social activities and processing.
Is lunch time discussing work topics or more personal ones?
If your interviewer does not know how to answer this question, ask him / her if people prefer to have dinner at their tables or go to a cafe. Feel free to ask the same question to different people so that you can draw a complete picture. Of course, the best scenario is to have lunch with the team during your interview. If it is not in the schedule, suggest it.
The question of talking during lunch gives an idea of the relationship within the team. Some companies have a clear distinction between professional and personal, while others do not.
Career growth
What is the reason why engineers most often leave the company?
Clear answers to this question give a clear picture. “We have no turnover in the last 18 months” or “The last 5 people who left, started to create their own companies.” But more often less clear answers are heard, since interviewers rarely say directly that people leave because of an unhealthy working atmosphere or constant reworking. Therefore, you will need to determine how your interviewer answers these questions in addition to what he actually says. Yes. You are interviewing your interviewer.
Why are you looking for external candidates for this position? (For managers or leading roles)
You need to find out why they cannot close the vacancy by any member of the team. You can learn that enhancements are rarely practiced in this company or that there is a serious gap in knowledge or experience that you will be responsible for restoring.
Did any of the senior engineers start working at this company from the position of a junior engineer?
This is especially useful for juniors. If you are the first junior developer, then ask what the team’s expectations from this position are and who you can contact for help.
You will also find out if there is a career growth in the company. It's great to know that other junior developers were able to grow in the company. Ask if you can meet and talk to such a person, even if this is not the person with whom you will work directly.
What is the process, for example, transition to another project or to another team?
A good answer would include examples of many people who have done just that. “Jess just moved from the development team to the infrastructure team. Stephen started working as an engineer and is now a project manager. ”
Just because the company has an established policy on internal mobility, this does not mean that it is implemented.
Learn how easy it is to try different things, and how the transition between projects / teams is organized based on interest and compliance. Can you yourself be the initiator for such transitions? How long will it take? Does the company support these changes?
Psychological situation
Can you give me an example of an error that you made. How was it processed?
Ideally your interviewer will answer honestly. If people are comfortable talking about big failures, then this is a good sign. This suggests that the company has created a safe environment for people to survive failure, and that this environment is open to risk and experimentation.
If people are closed in discussing failures, this may indicate a culture of guilt in the company.
How quickly do people react to emails / messages on Slack on weekends and after 6 pm?
So you can get an idea of the real working hours and how the team members communicate with each other.
You should not ask a direct question about the balance of work / life in the company. Not only can some interviewers interpret this as a reluctance to work, but they will certainly give you a sample answer as well.
Was the team reorganized and how was it going?
Then ask: “What prompted reorganization and what were the changes?” Stories about reorganizations let you know how a general business works and where it goes. Companies decide to restructure for several reasons: malfunctions, change of customer base, growth or reduction of staff, control over the manager, or just an attempt to correct something that does not work.
It is helpful to know what problems exist, how they are measured and how well they consider the people involved when making these changes.
Development
Can you describe the development process from setting the problem to the release in production?
There is no right or wrong answer. You need to find out if the company shares your development vision. If you prefer to work quickly and value independence, you are unlikely to be comfortable in a team where the code is reviewed 5 times and the business team is waiting for its release before production.
What tools do you use for version control?
Good teams use good tools. If you do not want to get into a team that uses outdated tools, then it is reasonable to ask what version control system they use.
How did your team switch to using the current framework?
If you simply ask: “Why did you decide to use X?”, Then engineers can activate a defensive reaction. Questions with "why" can be perceived as an attack. Since you are less familiar with their technological stack and business than they are, it is better to ask how they came to the decision to use certain technologies, did they consider other options, how did they evaluate the trade-offs between them? You will find out who has the right to make decisions when it comes to technology, and where the company is from a technology perspective.
Team Values
Who in the company is the most motivating example for you and why?
So you will learn more about who works here and what qualities are respected in the company. In addition, ask your interviewer to invite a member of the team whom he is proud of / inspired by. If it is difficult for him / her to choose only one person, this is a good sign. If you call people from all over the company, this is also a good sign.
On which project will I work and what indicators will determine success?
Everyone should ask what he will work on as soon as he joins. Of course, this should be something interesting and challenging for you, but you also need to find out if there are clear indicators to measure your performance.
If your interviewer avoids the second half of the question, you can ask specifically whether you will be responsible for improving the speed and availability of services, monetization or retention of users. You will not only get an idea of what you will do, but also how the company manages the data.
How is product management?
It is important to understand the role played by engineers in the company and whether you will take part in the development of ideas and concepts or will delegate such work, who has the authority to make decisions.
Clarifying questions can be: How do you distribute the responsibilities of employees? How much do engineers say about what is built and how it is built?
Often when we come to an interview we just want to enjoy it, and we forget that during the interview we also choose to work. By asking the right questions to the interviewers, you can understand how the company meets your values and satisfies your career interests.
Look for more interview questions here .
“And if a candidate has no questions, then the question arises about the candidate,” a friend from Silicon Valley HR told me in a conversation about job-searching in the US.
To ask a HR, a manager, a potential colleague about something is not just a good form and an opportunity to leave the necessary professional impression of yourself. The right questions help you to understand how comfortable you will be working in a team and whether the company will be able to satisfy your career interests.
On this subject, I recently found an entertaining questiontik interviewer KeyValues.com . For those who do not speak English sufficiently, I decided to make a translation.
At the interface of programming and interpersonal relationships
His creator, Lynne Tye, had a very different, but always interpersonal-focused professional experience before switching to web programming. She has worked as an operations manager at Homejoy, where she has more than 150 people under her leadership, and has a degree in neurology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
')
Having worked remotely for several years as a web developer, Lin learned a lot about the diversity of work styles, team dynamics and engineering cultures. During this time, she clearly understood what she wanted, and decided that it would be easy for her to find the right job in the right team.
I sat down to make a list of companies I would like to join, and I will tell you: it was completely useless. <...>
I wanted to know who I would work with. However, company pages and job descriptions were completely useless. I phoned several recruiters on the phone, and none of them could answer how engineers are involved in product development, whether they prefer to work quickly or bring the code to perfection. This explains why programmers prefer to join companies that already know someone. <...>
I created Key Values as a place where engineering teams will be able to talk about their culture and how to translate their values into everyday practice, because all this is important to know before passing a technical screen interview and face-to-face interview to the company .
So what questions to ask and how to decipher the answers?
On the main page of the Key Values website you are invited to choose the most important working moments for you. For convenience, they are divided into 6 thematic groups: daily work, team values, healthy environment, programming, career growth, company strategy.
I tried to choose the most common and important aspects of the workflow from my point of view. Further you are waiting for questions that Lin proposes to ask at interviews at my request.
Work and friendship
What promotes friendly relations within your team?
Most people do not recognize that the members of their team are not close to each other or they lack teamwork. Asking about what the team is connected to, you will get a clear idea of how friendly and united everyone is. Members of one team attend conferences together, and members of the other were friends before joining the company. Perhaps you will learn about joint social activities and processing.
Is lunch time discussing work topics or more personal ones?
If your interviewer does not know how to answer this question, ask him / her if people prefer to have dinner at their tables or go to a cafe. Feel free to ask the same question to different people so that you can draw a complete picture. Of course, the best scenario is to have lunch with the team during your interview. If it is not in the schedule, suggest it.
The question of talking during lunch gives an idea of the relationship within the team. Some companies have a clear distinction between professional and personal, while others do not.
Career growth
What is the reason why engineers most often leave the company?
Clear answers to this question give a clear picture. “We have no turnover in the last 18 months” or “The last 5 people who left, started to create their own companies.” But more often less clear answers are heard, since interviewers rarely say directly that people leave because of an unhealthy working atmosphere or constant reworking. Therefore, you will need to determine how your interviewer answers these questions in addition to what he actually says. Yes. You are interviewing your interviewer.
Why are you looking for external candidates for this position? (For managers or leading roles)
You need to find out why they cannot close the vacancy by any member of the team. You can learn that enhancements are rarely practiced in this company or that there is a serious gap in knowledge or experience that you will be responsible for restoring.
Did any of the senior engineers start working at this company from the position of a junior engineer?
This is especially useful for juniors. If you are the first junior developer, then ask what the team’s expectations from this position are and who you can contact for help.
You will also find out if there is a career growth in the company. It's great to know that other junior developers were able to grow in the company. Ask if you can meet and talk to such a person, even if this is not the person with whom you will work directly.
What is the process, for example, transition to another project or to another team?
A good answer would include examples of many people who have done just that. “Jess just moved from the development team to the infrastructure team. Stephen started working as an engineer and is now a project manager. ”
Just because the company has an established policy on internal mobility, this does not mean that it is implemented.
Learn how easy it is to try different things, and how the transition between projects / teams is organized based on interest and compliance. Can you yourself be the initiator for such transitions? How long will it take? Does the company support these changes?
Psychological situation
Can you give me an example of an error that you made. How was it processed?
Ideally your interviewer will answer honestly. If people are comfortable talking about big failures, then this is a good sign. This suggests that the company has created a safe environment for people to survive failure, and that this environment is open to risk and experimentation.
If people are closed in discussing failures, this may indicate a culture of guilt in the company.
How quickly do people react to emails / messages on Slack on weekends and after 6 pm?
So you can get an idea of the real working hours and how the team members communicate with each other.
You should not ask a direct question about the balance of work / life in the company. Not only can some interviewers interpret this as a reluctance to work, but they will certainly give you a sample answer as well.
Was the team reorganized and how was it going?
Then ask: “What prompted reorganization and what were the changes?” Stories about reorganizations let you know how a general business works and where it goes. Companies decide to restructure for several reasons: malfunctions, change of customer base, growth or reduction of staff, control over the manager, or just an attempt to correct something that does not work.
It is helpful to know what problems exist, how they are measured and how well they consider the people involved when making these changes.
Development
Can you describe the development process from setting the problem to the release in production?
There is no right or wrong answer. You need to find out if the company shares your development vision. If you prefer to work quickly and value independence, you are unlikely to be comfortable in a team where the code is reviewed 5 times and the business team is waiting for its release before production.
What tools do you use for version control?
Good teams use good tools. If you do not want to get into a team that uses outdated tools, then it is reasonable to ask what version control system they use.
How did your team switch to using the current framework?
If you simply ask: “Why did you decide to use X?”, Then engineers can activate a defensive reaction. Questions with "why" can be perceived as an attack. Since you are less familiar with their technological stack and business than they are, it is better to ask how they came to the decision to use certain technologies, did they consider other options, how did they evaluate the trade-offs between them? You will find out who has the right to make decisions when it comes to technology, and where the company is from a technology perspective.
Team Values
Who in the company is the most motivating example for you and why?
So you will learn more about who works here and what qualities are respected in the company. In addition, ask your interviewer to invite a member of the team whom he is proud of / inspired by. If it is difficult for him / her to choose only one person, this is a good sign. If you call people from all over the company, this is also a good sign.
On which project will I work and what indicators will determine success?
Everyone should ask what he will work on as soon as he joins. Of course, this should be something interesting and challenging for you, but you also need to find out if there are clear indicators to measure your performance.
If your interviewer avoids the second half of the question, you can ask specifically whether you will be responsible for improving the speed and availability of services, monetization or retention of users. You will not only get an idea of what you will do, but also how the company manages the data.
How is product management?
It is important to understand the role played by engineers in the company and whether you will take part in the development of ideas and concepts or will delegate such work, who has the authority to make decisions.
Clarifying questions can be: How do you distribute the responsibilities of employees? How much do engineers say about what is built and how it is built?
Often when we come to an interview we just want to enjoy it, and we forget that during the interview we also choose to work. By asking the right questions to the interviewers, you can understand how the company meets your values and satisfies your career interests.
Look for more interview questions here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/346648/
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