

Ask HN: What should I ask companies during interviews? - asimjalis

Here are the questions I currently ask when I am interviewing at companies. What should I ask?<p>1. Do you write unit tests? Do you use test-driven development?<p>2. What source control do you use?<p>3. What is the most pressing problem you are working on this week or today?
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icey
I've done a lot of candidate interviews in the past, and your #3 question is
killer - Almost nobody asks that question during interviews; the ones that
have asked it have almost always gotten an offer. (In that they have almost
always been the highest quality candidates anyways.)

Beyond that, I like to ask about the longevity of the people that I'll be
working with; i.e. "What is your turn-over rate like?" or "What is the average
number of years people on this team have worked here?"

I've found that turnover is a pretty decent indicator of employee happiness.
The lower the better, of course.

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Tangurena
Generally, you should ask questions to help YOU decide if the place is a good
(or not) place to work at. Many people use the Joel Test as a guideline. As
time goes by, you'll add your own questions to find things that went
wrong/right at previous places.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html>

Since some questions aren't approprite, such as _"do you have any psychopaths
working here?"_ then you'll have to find some proxy questions that will help
you decide if you're going to end up in a mental wood chipper at this place.

[http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-
Work/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-
Work/dp/0060837721)

~~~
asimjalis
I agree that the Joel Test is a guideline. Some questions on it might only
work for everybody. Consider, "Do you have a spec?" Some of the neatest teams
I have worked on used index cards instead of a static spec and it worked
really well.

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ErrantX
One of the best questions (he is one of our project leads now :D) asked by an
interviewee of ours was:

 _If I get a really great idea how quickly and by what path does that get to
someone who can make a decision on it? And can I do the pitch myself?_

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asimjalis
If a team does not have source control or an automated build system is that a
deal breaker? Or is that an opportunity? I have noticed that the thing that
makes some teams magical to work on is an undefinable quality that they have a
kind of indescribable vibe.

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stonemetal
Mostly you should ask about what is important to you, if they haven't covered
it already. I would add their stance on side projects, and power of
developers(to say hold up a release because of show stoppers) to the list you
have.

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aaronbrethorst
"Are you happy?"

