
Ask HN: What do you wish you had known before you took a new job? - bwb
I have a friend looking at a job offer and we were talking about the question of hindsight. She is thinking about taking a new position and is wondering what you wish you had known&#x2F;discovered about your employer before you took the job?<p>What do you wish you had known about the company you were working for prior to working there?<p>What do you wish you had discovered about your current employer before you were hired?<p>Any questions you wish you had asked or processes you wish you had known about?<p>Thanks!
======
chasingthewind
I've been thinking about this question for many years now and I have not been
able to come up with a good, concise answer about the critical things you need
to know before joining a new team. There are so many questions you could ask
that it's almost overwhelming.

If I could only get a good answer to one high level question however it would
be this:

"Does the company support strong, friendly collaboration inside teams and
across teams?"

If a company prizes people working together to solve problems in a friendly,
collaborative manner then I think it's much more likely to be an enjoyable
place to work and learn. If a company doesn't appear to have this kind of
culture then it's an immediate red flag.

Some examples of NOT having this kind of culture: \- Rigid silos (at the team
level or across teams) \- Sink or swim culture \- Knowledge hoarding /
knowledge brokering \- Backstabbing

~~~
bwb
Ya that is a really good one! I've been trying to figure out how to get a real
answer on a question like that :), like is there something I can ask that
shows that without asking it like that.

I.e. how do you store knowledge in the x team? Or, how often would I get to
work with someone in x team?

~~~
chasingthewind
I think it's actually reasonable to literally say "Tell me about how people
collaborate here at XYZ and on this team."

If people start highlighting all the ways in which they work together, how
they help each other, how they do pair programming or how they support each
other then that's a great sign. If they stammer and they give a lame answer
then it could mean the culture doesn't really value collaboration.

------
muzani
A lot of this is instinct. We may have very little experience interviewing,
but we have decades of experience with humans. Nearly all the terrible moves I
made was ignoring a base instinct for some positive signs.

1\. Incompetent boss - drove a car he couldn't afford, was completely out of
touch with his business. Excited for new technology that he didn't understand.
Ended up bouncing across multiple ideas, never focusing enough to make one
work, even though there was a waiting client.

2\. Dishonest partner. Knew he was dishonest, took him anyway. Ended up
burning all our other partners and flaking out of agreements.

3\. Narcissistic client. Talked about how his staff were donkeys, to be
motivated by carrots and sticks. Contact person was flaky on price, because
they knew the boss would negotiate hard and move goalposts.

4\. Impossible project. Project had years long history of attempts. Client
brags about how marketing is the only thing that matters and that he comes
from tech background. Turns out that the client overpromised to investors,
can't gauge difficulty properly, and makes unreasonable requests.

5\. Asshole client. Refused to pay for drinks. Spent the hour first meeting
criticizing competitors. Later ghosted after I spent 2 weeks on a prototype.

6\. Incompetent company. Boss had serious personal space issues. Was unable to
explain his product. 6 years of bootstrapping to little success. Turned out
that they had extremely serious issues that bled them major clients, and only
won clients through blatant lies.

------
convolvatron
its very difficult to get an honest read from interviewers and hiring manager.
the less functional they are the more desperate they are to turn things
around.

its clearly not a hard and fast rule, but one thing that I've found is the
things people and companies stress are often the things that they aspire to
be, and are directly in contradiction with the way things actually are.

a company that stresses how well the deal with 'technical debt', is often one
thats drowning in legacy code.

'productive collaboration' might mean a systemic culture of mistrust and
people going their own way for no reason.

a company that says they are hiring you to present game-changing ideas for
consideration is likely to put you in a corner and ignore you.

but I have alot of baggage :)

~~~
bwb
:), so the more they try to define themselves as x that usually means they are
defining themselves by their biggest challenge.

I kinda like that :). Now I have to go think about what that means for me
personally!

------
lovestodonothin
I wish I'd read up about the stability of the company I'm joining and if
they're financially sound or not. Companies that aren't doing well financially
usually have problems with management (for example, projects don't get enough
funding).

Another thing I missed is if the people on your team sound bored or don't seem
interested or excited about their work. One way I found telling was if they
didn't go into details about their projects and try to be ambiguous.

------
twoquestions
Most large corporations are more run by personal dominance and fear than by
use of profitable skills. Once you reach a certain size, the economy caters to
you rather than the other way around. Reality is determined by the will of the
powerful, rather than what is observable.

Profitable skills in and of themselves can be dangerous in a large
corporation, as skillful people can change things outside the will of the
politically powerful.

------
codingslave
I wish I had fully understood their business model, not what their business
could be, but how it really makes money. Who drives that money being made, and
what would be my working relationship with them? It's not always transparent
how this works, all useful politics within a company revolve around the
working group that is bringing in the money. Your experience and future at a
company from a monetary and career perspective is directly linked to this,
everything else is secondary.

~~~
bwb
If you had understood the business model and how it really makes money, would
that have changed your mind on joining? Or more give you more info to succeed
once you were an employee?

Got any examples?

~~~
throwaway2019Z
If you are an engineer and the company primarily makes money through cold
calls by salespeople, then the salespeople are a revenue generating center and
you are a cost center. A company increases profits by increasing revenue and
reducing costs, so you can figure out which group will be prioritized when it
comes to promotions and bonuses.

~~~
bwb
ah right, great point!

------
marshray
That everyone there above the bottom-tier staff were jerks. (Not referring to
my current or any recent job.)

I've turned this over in my head for more than a decade now and have concluded
there was no question I could have asked, or other way I could have known
before accepting the position. Likewise, I've concluded that there's no
reliable way to what a new hire will be like to work with until you've worked
with them for several months.

Sometimes you just gotta change jobs. Small companies can be great places
because sometimes the leadership directly sees the problems of turnover and
wants individuals to succeed.

In large companies if you don't like where you are there are generally more
options to move around.

Medium-sized companies can be the worst of both worlds. (I'm sure some are the
best though.)

------
itronitron
If there were any offhand remarks made during the interview/recruiting process
that are influencing your friend's decision then it's worth asking more detail
about that, preferably in email.

------
el_dev_hell
Instead of asking "what hours will I be working?" swap that with "how many
hours does $COWORKER put in each week?".

Or even just: "Am I expected to be available 24/7 if something goes wrong?"

A workplace culture of being available 24/7 is awful (regardless of the
salary) in my opinion.

------
gshdg
That they were about to relocate their office.

