Comment by _a_a_a_ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _a_a_a_ | Hacker News Reader

This is naïve and looks like the guy doesn't have all that much experience

"Good candidates now ask many diverse questions about the team setup, role expectations, challenges, the tech stack, career and mentoring opportunities, work times, etc."

And if the interviewer doesn't like these questions, because they have too much ego in this? Because I can't actually ask good questions because I don't have enough knowledge of the inside of their company (other than off the website, which is their public face so they're going to be distinctly partisan about how good they are), whereas they have a potted summary of me in front of them in the form of my CV?

Or if they out right lie about the tech stack, the "career and mentoring opportunities", how fucking bad the management is…?

Because this is exactly what happened at a number of companies I've interviewed for, and most especially the one I'm working for now.

My experience is you make yourself look cute and cuddly, don't challenge too much (eg. don't ask if they have an bug tracker because often they don't[1] and they'll get irritated).

Great advice for an ideal world, not this one.

[1] And if you find out they do have one, especially don't ask if they actually use it.

The flip side is 'do you want to work for someone who's ego is so fragile that asking a couple of questions might tank your interview'?

Maybe you're OK navigating around that person, but many are not, and I'd rather not have to bother.

Yeah, there's only so much you can glean, but just like they're looking for red flags from you, you're looking for red flags from them.

I'm not sure how common it is (in tech) to be interviewed by the person you work under. If it were common, I would agree with you.

Every tech interview I have had has, at some point, included interviewing with the person I'd be working under

One of the interviewers in my loop at $BigTech was my future manager. He was hiring for his team.

But even that’s irrelevant because of turnover and reorgs, you’re not likely to be under your current manager for long.

Sounds like you've had some rough interviews. I think you're also right, though; it is generally rough out there these days.

At the same time, the "candidate asking questions" portion is 10 minutes if you're lucky, and it's between two strangers who've known each other for maybe 45 minutes up to that point. It's understandable why the interviewer might give canned answers.

I think it's still worth asking the questions. The Joel Test [1] may be older than many candidates these days, but a large number of companies still fail most questions.

For the trickier questions, I think you have to read between the lines and look at what's not said. If you ask about work-life balance and the interviewer gives a little "hah" before answering — well, there's your answer. If you ask about the build system or deploy process and they keep hand-waving — well, they're still telling you something very important about the engineering culture.

[1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-s...

I haven't seen that list for a while and it's a good one. Looking at it now it's even better because point 1 is: Do you use source control?

I wouldn't even bother asking because the answer is obvious. Everyone has it. Until I started at my current place. They don't and they're not interested in getting it. Idiots.

Next interview I'll brush up on those 12 questions. Thanks.

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