Things that will help probe in that phase of the interview:
- Ask about deadlines.
- Ask about requirements, how much do they have, how often they change, who makes the final call, how are they scoped initially, how involved are the stakeholders.
- Beyond unit testing, how is QA handled, how is user acceptance testing handled, how does all of this affect timelines.
- Ask for a roadmap, can they tell you what they plan on building in the next year. Some managers don’t share this information with their team in general, so expect a solid ‘not sure, but we have stuff promise’ type response (which gives you an answer on transparency).
- Why do they need one more person on the team? Here you really want to find out their current bottlenecks. Then probe deeper and find out if the bottlenecks are a lack of labor, or systemic issues (see above bullet points). Scary answers include ‘no roadmap, and everything is on time’ - so why do you need me?
- The dance with the manager at a startup could eliminate you as they are still looking for people that will put up with absolutely anything. But, they might also be ready for more process oriented people. Again, you have to signal who you are. If these things don’t matter to you, go with the ‘I eat sleep and code answer’.
If you sufficiently annoyed them at the end of those questions, both you and the company will agree in a non-spoken dance that you won’t be happy in their management style.
If you really really just need a check, don’t ever ask questions like that. Just say, ‘I build stuff on my spare time constantly, and I just love development, so I think this would be a great opportunity to grow’. You are signaling you are desperate and ready to fuck.
Small things to consider, if you ask those questions to a regular dev on their team, you will get feedback that you might not fit (so don’t ask the team these questions). Save it for the manager, and negotiate with the unspoken dance directly.
Best of luck, culture fit is definitely how the manager and you maintain healthiness, what you can put up, and what they can put up with. Even the most toxic manager has some humanity, and it is also exhausting for him/her to deal with unhappy people. Work together in the culture fit part to parse if everyone’s expectation is within reach.
The end goal of all of this is you don’t walk away from the job because you didn’t know what you got yourself into. You’re an adult, go into everything with both eyes open, no crying at the end.