
Ask HN: How do you evaluate the culture of the dev team you're interviewing for? - three_legs
I recently got a new job and the culture of what I expected the engineering team to be vs. how I am now experiencing it is vastly different.<p>The first thing that stands out is that during my interviews, everyone had their video on, but now during standups and sprint planning, no one (except me) has their video on; the standups are also everyone saying &quot;yep, working on ticket 455, probably finish that today, that&#x27;s all for me, no blockers&quot; and no real interactive discussion or engagement.<p>Besides explicitly asking &quot;do you all have video on for meetings?&quot; or &quot;is standup more than just a one line status update?&quot;, how do you evaluate (what kinds of questions do you ask) an engineering team when interviewing to get a good sense of their culture?
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danpalmer
Most interviews do not have enough time to assess for culture fit (from the
candidate), so ask for time. Any company that has a good culture will be happy
to give you an hour to ask questions, maybe more. This might be only at the
offer stage, but by that point they are invested enough that there's no reason
other than hiding a bad workplace to not give you that time.

Treat it almost like an interview. Write up questions, think about the
questions for a while, think about what a good and bad answer looks like.
They're probably going to be pretty open ended, and the conversation may be
somewhat circuitous, but they will be valuable.

Questions I like to ask are things like:

\- Walk me through the process from ideation, spec, code, testing, deployment,
maintenance. Who owns each part? How long does each part take? Which
people/roles, processes, tools/tech are involved?

\- If you left, what would you want to take from this team to your next? What
does the team do better than others?

\- What do you think the team needs to improve at? What does it do less well
than other teams you've been a part of?

\- How does change happen? What mechanisms do you have for change? Can you
give some examples of change happening?

\- How does the team feel about... Code Review (or anything else you care
about)

~~~
hackeryogi
Very well summed up.

In addition, same set of questions can also be asked to people who've recently
left the organisation.

I'd use the following criteria to filter ex employees:

\- Reliable 1st/2nd level connections

\- Folks who have shown stability in the past (generally stick to jobs for > 2
years)

Obviously, they'd come with biases. But, talking 2-3 people should also help
reliably gather broad culture patterns. Should avoid listening to evidently
disgruntled folks.

------
muzani
Based on a study by Stanford, there are 5 types of corporate cultures in tech.

1\. Star: Hire the best people, give them super luxurious offices and perks,
let them do what they like. Something like Fog Creek, where interns get a
luxurious hotel when called in for interview and get flown in via helicopter.

2\. Engineering-based: The whole org chart architecture is based on pushing
engineering as far as possible. Something like Google and Facebook, where
management decisions are made based on data, and marketing is done from a
perspective of "if you build a good product, it will be easy to sell."

3\. Bureaucratic: Culture emerges from the middle managers. Job descriptions
are clear cut. Often things like pay and perks follow a rigid formula and
there are regular rituals and routines.

4\. Autocratic: Similar to bureaucratic, but designed around one person,
usually the CEO. Work, do what the boss says, get paid. Not necessarily evil,
something like Steve Jobs comes to mind.

5\. Commitment: Build the company as a place where people don't want to leave.
Avoid firing anyone, often offering retraining for existing staff. Lifestyle
perks - generous maternity leave, work from home options, training. Basecamp
is a model company.

Some are hybrids, which usually does worse than the others by mixing the worst
of both worlds. E.g. if you adopt a star culture, you probably can't adopt
rigid project management, and you can't do two months maternity leave.

The others are not bad. E.g. Autocratic does the worst on _average_. But that
doesn't mean it's wrong. I probably work in an autocratic environment and it's
the best job so far. There's upsides, like management being fully aware of the
product, development, marketing, and users.

You can probably reverse engineer interviews to see which they fit. An org
chart will clearly point out most of these.

Yours sounds like it's not a star or commitment culture. But it could well be
an engineering culture, which is not bad either.

~~~
troelsSteegin
I believe the cited work is "The Company They Keep: Founders' Models for
Organizing New Firms" by M Diane Burton, 2001. [0] That's 20 year old model.
It's a chapter in the book "The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Origins of
Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Industries" [1].

Any how, the paper talks about 3 dimensions of culture: attachment, selection,
and coordination & control. Rishi Dean's summary [2] is OK.

From my perspective, I would look at trust, which Laszlo Bock has reported on,
where your prospective organization's products are in market, and how that
organization figures out what to build.

FWIW, Abstract for "Founder's Models" \-- This chapter examines the employment
models founders use as they begin to construct new firms. The empirical
setting is a sample of emerging technology firms in Silicon Valley. This
chapter focuses on two questions: (1) Why are new firms founded under
different conceptual models? and (2) What are the factors that lead a founding
team to espouse a particular employment model?

[0]
[https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...](https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&context=articles)
[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurship-Dynamic-Evolution-
In...](https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurship-Dynamic-Evolution-Industries-
Paperback/dp/0804737908) [2] [https://rishidean.com/2010/10/23/startup-
employment-design-p...](https://rishidean.com/2010/10/23/startup-employment-
design-patterns/)

~~~
muzani
Yup, that's the one. Didn't realize it was a chapter. Excellent summary.

------
giantg2
I had an interview where the tech lead was typing on her computer the whole
time and didn't seem to focus at all on the interview. At one point she asked
me a question and went straight back to typing. When I was done with my answer
she didn't even acknowledge it - the manager had to jump in and ask me another
question after about 10 seconds of silence.

They offered me the job. I turned it down. The manager was surprised and asked
me why. I told him about that part of the interview and that if she wasn't
able to give me any attention to even acknowledge my answer to her question,
then I doubt she would give me enough to guide my work or lead me. The manager
gave some weak excuses and practically begged me to take the job, even
contacted my current manager at the time to pressure me. I still declined. No
way am I willing to jump in that dumpster fire of a team.

~~~
awinder
“The manager gave some weak excuses and practically begged me to take the job,
even contacted my current manager at the time to pressure me.”

Whoa, to tell your current manager you were looking around? This is a good
example of pushing on one part of bad culture and finding a bunch of others
but wow, not cool.

~~~
giantg2
It was at the same company. They expect you to discuss posting with your
manager before applying. Even if you don't, the application system notifies
them automatically when you submit a resume.

In this case the hiring manager called my then current manager to ask what was
going on, why I declined (even after I already told him), and basically trying
to make me look like I was wasting company time or being rude.

Luckily I got another call later that day offering me a position with a
different team, so i didn't have to deal with either of these managers again.
Although we are a pay for performance shop, and I feel like the old manager
screwed me on my year-end bonus (target is about $7k and I got $1k) and this
probably played into that.

------
kvn_95
Culture is a difficult thing to discover in a relatively short interview, but
usually I look for certain signs. Typically if I feel that the interview is
more like an extended discussion instead of like being in a game show, it's
usually a good sign.

It's also things around the interview itself, e.g. are you being treated
respectfully, or do you feel like being just one CV among many. Do they
respect your time; do they talk as an equal, or as a superior person; do they
get back to you if they don't go through; and more. I find that a company that
treats their applicants respectfully typically have a more agreeable culture.

Of course this is just my experience. Some game show style interview companies
may turn out to have a great culture, but what I find without fail is that if
you're respected as an applicant, the culture can't be _that_ bad :)

~~~
triyambakam
Can you explain more what you mean by "game show style"?

~~~
kvn_95
To me it's like a quiz style of interview, where you're up on a whiteboard
trying to answer a series of rapid fire questions. There is little discussion
about why you're doing what you did, only a pass/fail signified by a nod or
no-nod.

In contrast, a discussion style feels more like they're trying to figure out
how you approach some problem, nudge you toward a solution if you're stuck
(everyone usually gets stuck somewhere, especially if they have interview
anxiety. I know I do), and discuss with you why you did what you did, discuss
the pro/cons of some approaches, discuss alternatives, and so on.

The first style is just checking if you know the answers to some list of
things, while the second style is more like trying to get to know you as a
person and as an engineer.

The drawback of the second style is that it's more time consuming for both
parties. Quite tiring as well. However, I think it's part of respecting your
time and respecting you as an applicant.

------
PaulStatezny
I've been in this situation multiple times.

You interview, you like what you see, form a (partially subconscious) opinion
about the company/culture, take the job... and then discover some warts that
weren't visible.

Now you know to be skeptical any time you interview, and make it your job to
_hunt_ for the hidden warts. Ask questions as if the next N years of your
happiness at work depend on it! Don't feel satisfied (or take the job) until
you have reason to be relatively confident about what culture/situation you're
getting into.

Honestly, this is why I'm glad I switched jobs every couple years at the
beginning of my career. I've seen a wide range of types of companies (non-
profit, agency, corporate, start-up). I've also experienced various cultural
problems they don't reveal in the interview process.

Do they act like they have a nailed down process? It actually might be fluid,
and they're presenting the current iteration.

Does the interview process not seem very rigorous? You'll have peers who
aren't very competent, because the bar is low.

Make the _most_ out of learning from this experience! Make persistent attempts
to move the culture in the right direction. Don't be afraid to fail at that.
You can still gain a lot of growth from this.

------
Oras
> and no real interactive discussion or engagement. That's not what stand-ups
> for. Stand-ups are time bounded to keep everyone informed about the
> progress. I suppose discussion and engagement is your expectation.

It will be hard to evaluate the culture from an interview, you'll need to join
and spend few months to know better.

~~~
triyambakam
> That's not what stand-ups for. Stand-ups are time bounded to keep everyone
> informed about the progress.

If that's what they're for, why is it even synchronous? If all you need is a
one sentence status update, asynchronous Slack message would do. But I find
that effective standups surface latent details that wouldn't come up
asynchronously and also serve as a bonding time for the team

------
konfusinomicon
Covid is messing it all up. Our culture has suffered a decent bit (efficiency
is up though :) ), I'm sure the new hires at my company are in the same boat
as you..many of us know each other, so no video is just a whatever thing, but
it's definitely something that could be off putting when not having the
context of why. I'd say don't look to far into it and wait to judge until
pandemic is over..well that is if they ever get people corralled back to
offices full time

~~~
three_legs
Well it's helpful not to look too deeply into it, but this is for a
permanently remote position.

------
dave_sid
Your stand-ups sound like an absolute joy! I wish all of them were like that.

------
stennie
It is definitely challenging to get a sense of culture fit when interviewing,
and Covid has forced some rapid changes for teams that may still be adapting
to "temporary" work from home six months later. Companies that are focused on
culture fit tend to have some declared core values and a mission statement,
but these aren't always part of the ethos of the company/team goals or
recognition.

Interviewing is a discussion of fit for both you and the employer, so you
should feel free to ask questions (and they should allow time for this in the
interview process). I would try to determine how committed the interviewers
are to adhering to the company's values and mission, or if those are just
words for the careers page.

For example: What is your company's mission statement? Does your team have a
mission statement or vision? What is your favourite company value, and why?
How do your company values factor into decision making or planning? Tell me
about a recent decision influenced by your company values? If good values are
embedded in the company culture, I would expect some passion and examples of
their influence.

My company tries to be strongly aligned to our core values, and we have value-
specific interview questions to be transparent about how those values are
applied. For example, for our "Be Intellectually Honest" value one of the
interview discussion points might be "Can you describe a time your manager
took a stance or action that you didn’t agree with, and how you responded to
it.". The spirit & intention of this core value is that we have courage in our
convictions but work hard to ensure biases or personal beliefs do not get in
the way of finding the best solution. This is not a pass to use candor as an
excuse to make kind or unproductive remarks.

I think the specific examples you've mentioned (video during meetings,
agenda/format for stand-ups) are more about connection and collaborative
workflow than culture. I expect companies will probably have a core value that
maps to collaboration, so you could ask how that value is reflected in team
activities. Daily stand-ups in scrum are normally quick updates rather than
social chatter: what did you work on yesterday, what are you working on today,
any blockers. Ideally there will be other team activities that encourage more
social interaction (share & learn, beverage o' clock, etc).

Personally I would encourage video-on for synchronous stand-ups and sprint
planning. as otherwise it is challenging to feel engaged in the discussion.
However, if your team isn't doing this you should be able to have an open
conversation on why that is the case. Perhaps there is some underlying issue
(video is distracting or unreliable for some) that you haven't considered.
Great company culture is owned and shaped by the employees, so you should feel
empowered to help make your company culture better.

~~~
three_legs
Thanks for the detail and for the super helpful actionable advice! I'll give
that a try. How would you go about asking the team why they keep their video
off? Should I ask during standup, in Slack?

~~~
stennie
I would start by asking your team lead or manager why the team doesn't use
video (particularly for longer meetings like sprint planning), as they may
have more context. I expect the daily standup aims to be a fast and efficient
status update without the distraction of folks getting their video sorted.
There is probably a more appropriate team meeting for discussions, but if you
don't have a suitable regular team meeting then discussing in a team Slack
channel would be better than sidetracking the standup.

If you want to make the suggestion of adding video to a meeting, think about
what the benefits might be for your team and whether there may be more
suitable occasions to do so (eg sprint planning or a meeting later in the
day). If your coworkers understand more of the Why behind your request they
will hopefully be more willing to give this a try. They may also have valid
reasons for not wanting to use video too often (camera shy, limited bandwidth,
messy workspace, meeting is too early/late in their day, etc).

Another idea that might have less resistance versus changing an existing
meeting would be to try starting something new (and optional), like a Tech
Talk series. We have occasional internal Tech Talks, where the goal is short
technical presentations or discussions (about half an hour) over one of our
lunch breaks. Sometimes there are visiting presenters from other offices or
companies. These sessions are great if you want to learn more about job-
relevant tech that someone is learning, using, or building.

If your goals include fostering more social interaction and connection with
the team, you could also try suggesting a format that more directly achieves
that. For example, we started a Share & Learn series where anything is on-
topic except work. The concept is to facilitate directed discussion about a
personal passion topic. We plan for an hour (usually at the end of the day,
once a month) with up to 3 speakers and around 15 minutes per speaker plus
questions (delivery format up to the speaker). This has resulted in some great
talks/demos/discussions which helped us learn more about our coworkers (and
beekeeping, craft beer, technical interviews, video game mods, DNS, knots,
ballet, ...). We also open those up to everyone in the office and encourage
everyone to participate (irrespective of their department/org).

Some companies or teams may not be open to these sort of ideas, but circling
back to your original question about trying to evaluate company culture before
you accept a job... you can ask about these aspects in interviews as well.
What does your team do to keep up with new tech? What regular social or tech
sessions does the team have? Is there a budget for team lunches or social
activities and how often do these happen?

~~~
three_legs
Thanks for all the great detail, it's really useful! I appreciate the time you
took to share and I feel inspired and more prepared to try some new things
out!

