

Ask HN: I'm going to interview my possible next manager, any tips? - elai

I'm a developer who's going to interview the lead dev for my team in a couple of days.  I've never really interviewed much before, and other than giving him technical trivia, testing to see if he has passion for software development, and if we would get along, what should I ask?   What would you wished you had done or could of tested in your possible manager to be?
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calebmpeterson
Both my current and previous managers have been excellent for one overarching
reason: they each understood that developers are individual artists of a sort
and are not interchangeable gears. This fact may seem obvious to HNers but if
you've ever worked within a larger organization, you know how quickly this
jewel of wisdom is often forgotten. Knowing where the interviewee stands on
this point will be priceless for your whole team.

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HelgeSeetzen
Peer coding, coding tests and anything else you can do to evaluate actual
technical skills. At the "small team" level, most leaders still drive their
teams simply by being better developers that the other guys.

Interpersonal, leadership and operational skills only become critical at
higher levels (they are of course great to have at all levels if you are
lucky).

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milan_cvejic
Ask him hypotetical questions, ie. what would be your reaction that some of
product managers come and say that you have critical bug that needs to be
fixed NOW, and all other developers are not availaible (eg. weekend)...

That should help you to undestand how that person is thinking, and how will he
react in different stressfull situations.

