
Ask HN: Types of questions to ask team members before accepting role? - 0x01030307
What kinds of questions would you ask coworkers before you begin working with them and accepting a role?<p>Disclaimer: my role will be in info sec.<p>Thanks
======
Spooky23
You never want to ask direct questions about the company that will be
bullshitted away -- you're wasting everyone's time in a little ceremony where
both parties say nothing. People will usually talk about how _they_ feel, and
if they don't, the way that they do not answer the question is useful as well.
It's also good way to make a personal connection with people.

Adapted from: "First, Break All the Rules". Gallup found that these questions
were correlated against organizational and personal performance across
industries, from fast food to the army to law firms. These were intended to be
answered on a 1-5 "strongly agree/agree/neutral/disagree/strongly disagree"
scale and need to be tailored to the situatino.

1\. Do you know what is expected of you? (If the employee answers with a four
or a five, this self-score would indicate that he or she knows the goal, how
it is measured, and how he or she plans to reach the goal. An answer of one
indicates that the employee does not know the goal or objective or how it is
measured and has no idea how to reach it.)

2\. Do you have the right materials and equipment to do your work right?

3\. At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?

4\. In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing
good work?

5\. Does you supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a
person?

6\. Is there someone at work who encourages your development?

7\. At work, do your opinions seem to count?

8\. Does the mission/purpose of the company make me feel that your job is
important?

9\. Are your co-workers committed to doing quality work?

10\. Do you have a best friend at work?

11\. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your
progress?

12\. This last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

~~~
christophilus
That’s a great list. I also like to ask:

\- When did you last miss supper / a personal event because you were working
late?

\- Think of the last person you know who left the company. Why did they leave?

\- When was your last vacation, and how long was it?

These are essentially a way of asking, how’s the work life balance? In a way
that avoids the BS answer, “great!”

~~~
saudioger
>Think of the last person you know who left the company. Why did they leave?

I don't think you'll get an honest answer for this a lot of the time, often
team members might not even directly know why someone was laid off

>When was your last vacation, and how long was it?

This is a bit tough too, it's very subjective. I personally like working, and
while I encourage my employees to use all of their vacation time, I rarely do
so myself (I spread my time around as individual days rather than large
chunks).

Also depends on your audience. Parents will answer this much differently than
individuals.

~~~
christophilus
It does depend on your audience, but I've gotten good mileage out of these
questions, so personally vouch for them. I got them from the book "Switch"[0],
which has better phrasing than I jotted down in my comment. I highly recommend
the book.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-
Hard/dp/038...](https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-
Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536084592&sr=1-1&keywords=switch)

------
GFischer
Ok, for infosec I'm not sure.

For dev work, I'd ask the questions in the Joel test.

Some questions do apply (I wouldn't expect a 100% YES answer, but hopefully
most of them):

    
    
      Do you have two monitors (or more)
      Do you get a fast PC
      Do you get your choice of mouse and keyboard
      Do you have a comfortable chair
      Do you have a fast (and unfiltered) internet connection
      Do you have quiet working conditions
      Do you use the best tools money can buy? 
      Do you support developer education by attending conferences, purchasing books, or something of that nature?

~~~
pawelwentpawel
"Do you have quiet working conditions" < this.

Apart from asking just questions it's a good practice to have a look at the
office that you are to work from (especially if no remote/wfh is allowed). I
learned that the hard way - signed a contract without checking what office I
would be working from. A couple days in and I had to use earplugs in tandem
with noise cancelling headphones.

------
kapilartistry
This thread has lot of good questions that can fit into any role. For InfoSec,
I would ask following questions to team members:

1\. How do you share knowledge about new vulnerabilities, detection techniques
etc.

2\. Did you attend any conference recently? Which one is your favorite
security conference?

3\. Does the management support presenting in conferences?

4\. Have you (or any team member) presented in any security conference in the
past?

5\. How were the team dynamics when responding to critical vulnerabilities
like Heartbleed, POODLE, Struts Vulns

6\. Does the Chief Security Officer has any seat in the enterprise leadership

7\. How often are you required to share metrics around state of security

8\. Do you feel overwhelmed for crunching numbers as oppose to doing security
review

9\. Have you (or team) published and CVEs?

10\. What do you think about developers and how much time do you spend in
developer's security education?

11\. How often the team members go for training and certification like SANS,
Offensive Security, ISC2 etc.

These questions will judge whether the team has empathy for developers,
encourage research, environment for training and development, management
backing for security etc.

I have been in InfoSec for 9 years and have been taking interviews for last 3
years.

------
JulianRaphael
I've been asking the following two questions for many years now and they have
always been a great tool for me: "Can you tell me why I should NOT work here?"
"If you had a magic stick, what would you change about this company?"

~~~
mooreds
At my current job, they actively try to talk candidates out of taking the job,
just to make the warts/issues known beforehand.

~~~
teekert
Personally I'd never take a job that my future colleagues try to talk me out
of... Does this approach have any success?

~~~
bradknowles
It’s funny. Back when I was a senior in college, interviewing for what would
be my first “real” job after graduation, I interviewed with every major
defense contractor and computer company that came on campus. All the
recruiters had only the best things to say about the company they were
recruiting for. Not a single one of them contacted me for a second interview.

But during that same time, I also interviewed with a guy from the Defense
Communications Agency. He told me that he knew I had interviewed with a lot of
other companies, and that I could assume all the things those recruiters said
were also true of working for the government. He then followed by saying he
wanted to focus on the disadvantages of working for the government.

He really impresssed me with his honesty and forthrightness. When the call
came for a second (phone) interview, I didn’t hesitate. When the tentative job
offer came, I didn’t hesitate to take it. They took more than a year to
complete the initial background investigation, so I also got a chance to
squeeze in an internship that summer before starting to work there in August
of 1989, while they continued to finish the investigation which would result
in my TS/SCI clearance and the rocket-fueled start to my career.

I still remember Mr. Brewer’s name, and am grateful to him to this day, for
helping me get my start in this business.

------
wheresvic1
I made a little checklist for myself here:
[https://smalldata.tech/blog/2017/03/27/questions-to-ask-
at-t...](https://smalldata.tech/blog/2017/03/27/questions-to-ask-at-the-end-
of-a-technical-interview)

Maybe there are a few questions that make sense for your role!

------
edw519

      1. % time spent programming, % time spent not programming?
      2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you love your job?
      3. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
      4. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the business requirements you receive?
      5. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
      6. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the technical specs you receive?
      7. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
      8. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the dev environment?
      9. The biggest thing that would raise answer to last question?
      10. Avg length of time from dev complete to deployed into production?
      11. If you had not picked this, what would you have picked? Why?
      12. Biggest regret from this job?
      13. Biggest success from this job?
      14. How much longer to you see yourself working here?
      15. On a scale of 1 to 10, the quality of the existing code base?
      16. How far to closest Chinese buffet?

~~~
Jeremy1026
#16, never asked that one, but absolutely should. Next time.

~~~
miduil
I'd be disappointed getting such a not funny joke question asked.

------
montenegrohugo
1\. "What is your biggest gripe with the company?" \-- For me, at my current
company, this would be exaggerated over-rigidness and glacially slow moving
processes (because of checks and emails and re-checks and approvals and and
and) when a fast answer/development is required.

2\. "How many levels are there in the management hierarchy?" (deep vs flat) --
I tend to prefer flatter hierarchies, which plays into 3:

3\. "How much personal freedom do you get?" \-- Having more freedom means
being more responsible for your work, but also enables you to produce better,
faster, more creative stuff. The flatter the company management structure, the
better (usually).

~~~
majewsky
A flat hierarchy is not always strongly correlated to personal freedom. I'm 6
or 7 levels below the CEO, but I have a lot of personal freedom because of the
management style of my direct manager.

------
bespoke_engnr
I made a video with a list of questions I like to ask (and how to ask them):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XPTay-x8g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9XPTay-x8g)

They've saved me from some bad gigs.

The second half of the video covers questions for your would-be future
managers. Some of the commenters have also added excellent questions to ask.

Here are the co-worker questions:

1\. What's the most interesting thing you've gotten to work on (or learn
about) here?

2\. What's the balance between firefighting and project work in an average
week?

3\. What's the one thing you wish you could improve or change about your
everyday work life here?

4\. Every company is carrying some amount of technical debt -- what's the tech
debt situation here? -how much they think there is -what they're doing about
it

4\. What is the policy/practice as far as WFH or remotely? 5. What does the
on-call rotation look like?

------
3pt14159
These types of questions never get good answers because everyone feels like
they're an expert and very few people read through the other comments or vote
on them. You're better off reaching out to successful people you respect and
asking them for advice instead.

------
bhuga
One general rule: avoid binary/rating questions. So not:

"Do you like working at X?"

This question has a "right answer" (yes), and you'll always get it. Instead:

"What's your least favorite thing about X?"

Phrase all of your questions as free-form responses instead of multiple
choice. This is very helpful to get interviewers talking.

For specific questions, there's a lot of good ones on this thread, so the only
specific question I'd add is this one, which I found very helpful for startups
and fast-growing companies:

"It's 2 years from now, and X has failed. What happened?"

Well-run businesses had a well-understood answer about their biggest risks;
poorly-run places had platitudes and "it could never happen."

------
thrrrrow
If you have a family, verify if some of team members and manager also...

~~~
xivzgrev
This. To ensure incentives are aligned. To add to this you want to ask what
the manager values. At my current job the mgr straight up said he believes you
come first, then family, then work. Woohoo!

------
pronoiac
I got some inspiration from these: [https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-
queries](https://www.keyvalues.com/culture-queries)

You highlight what you're looking for, and it offers decent ways of asking
about them.

I found it here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15908812](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15908812)

------
schaunwheeler
I wrote this specifically for data science jobs but I think it translates
reasonably well into any technical role:

[https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-career-advice-
to...](https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-career-advice-to-my-
younger-self-4c37fac65184)

The short answer is that it all depends on what you are looking for in a
position.

The longer answer is ask them what they do (as a company, team, etc.), then
ask them what infrastructure (technical and organizational) they have in place
to do that. Then ask them about non-managerial growth paths (unless you're a
manager).

Finally, ask them to give you a question - some business problem they're
trying to solve - that they themselves don't know the answer to. Ask to sit in
a room with the people who would be involved in planning a solution to that
problem, and actually plan out the initial steps of solving it. That will tell
you more about the team dynamics and the workplace environment than any
explicit questions you might ask.

------
shreyanshd
This Julia Evans blog post lists many questions to ask before accepting a new
role : [https://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-
inter...](https://jvns.ca/blog/2013/12/30/questions-im-asking-in-interviews/)

------
jimduk
What have you learnt in the last year and how did that come about? Dig down to
see the situation or person or self-motivation that lead to this? Variations
can include 'what has the team learnt?'

This is useful at an individual level for your expectations, and it's a
company flag if people respond negatively.

------
lapnitnelav
"How would run the business / team / org differently?"

Should let you know what's wrong without asking directly.

------
xellisx
"You've been here for a while, what keeps you here?"

------
666lumberjack
"How much overtime have you worked in the past year?"

------
fl_dev
"What would you change right now in this team/company if you could?"

------
viraptor
What's the on-call system/expectations. What's the overtime pay/expectation.
What's the career progression system. How many meetings a week do you have.
Who controls requirements / work organisation. Remote work possibilities.

------
nfRfqX5n
-what are your typical hours? remote flexibility, etc

-is this a new headcount or am i replacing someone

~~~
joezydeco
_is this a new headcount or am i replacing someone_

In my experience, you never get an honest answer on this one. If there _is_ a
vacancy because someone quit, they're not going to say why they quit. They
probably don't know themselves since HR never shares exit interviews with
others - if they happen at all.

If it's not an open seat and they're replacing someone, they're not going to
say that either to avoid tipping off the current employees that someone is
about to be sacked.

I'm always amazed by the % of people that work for large companies and never
monitor the open jobs page on the website. They seem shocked when told that
there are open reqs in their own group.

------
jacknews
It's a difficult one to ask (and/or get an honest answer to), but something
like "how much do you trust the boss, and the company". If they don't have
integrity, other answers might not matter.

~~~
bspn
This is important as the rot almost inevitably starts at the top, but in my
experience it is rare for an underling to badmouth their boss to someone who
they don't know (I say this as someone who should have, but didn't due to fear
of being fired). Instead you have to eek out a general vibe by asking less
pointed questions like:

* How often do you interact with the CEO/insert title?

* How comfortable are you with the level of transparency and your understanding of the company's overall health?

* Do you have input into wider strategic decisions or is that handled by a smaller group?

* What does the X year roadmap/vision for the company look like?

* How does senior management interact with the team? Is everyone together during the day so it's a natural flow or is the management team in their office/meetings most of the time?

etc, etc. Ask enough of these types of questions and eventually you'll wear
through the polish and get a better feel for how people really think about the
boss.

~~~
ht85
They might not bad mouth, but generally a bad leader will get you neutral
"fine", "great" opinions.

People under someone they respect and like will tell stories and use
superlatives.

------
stephengillie
1\. Who is the most difficult person here to work with, and why? (Who should I
watch out for - do they have a bad temper or goto management every
disagreement?)

2\. What's the biggest technical thorn in the company's side? (This is almost
always something basic - like convincing management to buy more storage, or
getting everyone to migrate to the newest version of something, or an
underperforming vendor with a long contract.)

Both of these tell you about the company, and also about the person's
perspective from their role and expected duration.

~~~
benburleson
I would never honestly answer #1. In my head I know my honest answer today,
but out of context I would never attempt to explain the history with a
candidate. If the candidate joins the team, then what? Are some offices so
impersonal that this doesn't become an issue?

------
crispyambulance
I am sure that folks will give their list of gotcha questions for which a
negative response would, to them, indicate a red flag. Some folks will give a
list of questions that require long, honest, and thoughtful responses to be of
any value. There's nothing wrong with asking questions you feel are valuable.

BUT, more important than any of these questions, however, is the one you have
to you ask yourself: How will you evaluate these pieces of information?

At the end of the day, it's an intrinsically subjective analysis.

------
cottonseed
The Developer's Guide to Interviewing has some great ideas:
[https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-interview-as-a-
develo...](https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-interview-as-a-developer-
candidate-b666734f12dd)

------
chhs
"How would you describe the code quality of the project you work on?"

------
KineticLensman
“If you work on multiple projects simultaneously, is it clear who would
resolve conflicts between the projects that affect you?”

E.g. if two different project managers are giving you tasks that exceed your
capacity

------
user5994461
Would you recommend <company name> to your friends?

------
ngneer
Specifically for information security, have the team members had PREVIOUS
ROLES IN THE FIELD?

------
boffinism
"What's the worst part of your job?"

------
TheBiv
“How does the company reward tenure?”

------
fifteen3
Describe how you work as a team.

~~~
humanrebar
Also, specifically: How are big decisions made? When two individuals disagree
about a technical choice, how is the conflict resolved?

------
mv4
When I interviewed at FAANG, I would often ask them the same questions they
ask me. Very effective.

------
a_imho
Rate the company out of 10.

------
slipwalker
Check the restrooms. That's where disgruntled employees act on their
frustrations and take revenge on the company. Broken and dirty restrooms are a
red flag.

Also, try to find out who left the company recently, reach to them on linkedin
and try to chat a bit about the reasons to leave. Take it with a grain of
salt, thou.

------
INTPenis
What is a team? I know we're on HN but there are many different types of
teams.

I work in sort of devops teams and I've helped conduct the technical part of a
few interviews so I made some questions for that reason.

1\. Some technical questions but they're not that important.

2\. More important is what they do in their off time. I always try to figure
out how nerdy they are.

One person when asked the 2nd type of question brought out their mobile phone
and showed us how they could control their entire home with an open source
automation system and a homemade app they made themselves.

They were hired and they were very good.

~~~
jowiar
Re #2: Ugh. This sort of thing is a selector for plenty that is negative about
the tech industry — selects for young single men without a family.

Frankly, I want to go home at night and do anything but code. Music, art,
explore the city, have friends. And I want to work with others who value the
same.

------
cryptozeus
IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right
answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me
what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that
interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed.

I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the
build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site in production
due to bug? Etc.

~~~
throwawaymath
You _really_ should not be using basic questions concerning things like work
life balance as a hiring heuristic for candidates. If nothing else, from a
purely pragmatic standpoint you do not receive any new information from a
question about work life balance other than, "This candidate has a question
about work life balance."

Your _interpretation_ of that question is going to be noisy, subjective,
unreliable and intrinsically incomplete. That makes it an exceptionally poor
hiring signal. The idea that you can divine interesting insights about a
candidate's employability or character based on mundane interview questions is
fundamentally flawed.

