Interview Questions You Should Ask Them

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sp4ceman

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Hey there.
So interview season is upon us once again.
One of the things I don't think I do well enough is ask the company I'm interviewing at enough questions.

So what are some good developer centric questions you should be asking them in the interview?

Heres my list so far :

Do we write unit tests?
Do you use TDD?
Are you agile?

I am fairly convinced that these are pretty much deal breakers for me.
I will not work at a place that doesn't test properly.
 
Here are some I would ask:

- How do your version control and deployment processes work?

- What percentage of my time will be spent maintaining old systems versus building new systems?

- How do you protect your developers from interruptions?

- Will my manager have a technical background?

- How long have the other developers been here?

- Can I meet the team to get a feel for the culture?

- (If the contract contains a clause like this) How many hours does "a reasonable amount of overtime" equate to, and how will normal work hours versus overtime be tracked?
 
- Am I replacing another person or is this a new position
- Do you enforce code analysis and check code coverage (Are you concerned about quality)
- Do you use continuous integration building and testing (Make sure that you don't get screwed for someone else's broken code)
 
sp4ceman said:
Hey there.
So interview season is upon us once again.
One of the things I don't think I do well enough is ask the company I'm interviewing at enough questions.

So what are some good developer centric questions you should be asking them in the interview?

Heres my list so far :

Do we write unit tests?
Do you use TDD?
Are you agile?

I am fairly convinced that these are pretty much deal breakers for me.
I will not work at a place that doesn't test properly.
Click to expand...

The notion that not using TDD = not testing properly is rubbish
 
I would ask similar questions, but primarily, I would be trying to avoid companies that are gung ho about named and/or acronymed methodologies like agile and tdd, in favour of those that do what makes sense to do, when it makes sense to do it. I.e. I don't want to work for the "script kiddies" of management. I generally get a sense of whether or not this is the case, from the competency of the interviewers (judged by what questions they ask, and how well they know their material) rather than any specific questions about tools or methodologies. My suggestion is to carefully consider your interviewer, rather than just focusing on the questions given to you.

One question I now ask to the hiring managers (or their seniors, if also interviewing me) is "Is your company a meritocracy?". If the answer is a puzzled look or "no" (less likely), I will walk.
 
Better questions might be what testing strategy have they chosen and why? What project management method are they using and why?

I've witnessed agile zealots completely screw everything up. Not everything works everywhere all the time.

_kabal_ said:
The notion that not using TDD = not testing properly is rubbish
Click to expand...
Test driven development is meant to be more about the discipline of thinking about testing in advance, instead of trying to get it all done later.
 
cguy said:
One question I now ask to the hiring managers (or their seniors, if also interviewing me) is "Is your company a meritocracy?". If the answer is a puzzled look or "no" (less likely), I will walk.
Click to expand...

Personally nothing would make me run for the hills quicker than a company that claims to be a meritocracy.
 
cguy said:
I would ask similar questions, but primarily, I would be trying to avoid companies that are gung ho about named and/or acronymed methodologies like agile and tdd, in favour of those that do what makes sense to do, when it makes sense to do it.
Click to expand...

This. A friend of mine works at a dev shop that regularly posts (herself included) articles about more acronyms than projects they put live. And it seems like every second nitwit comes up with a new acronym every other week.

You should ask questions about their attrition rate, reward schemes, overtime and domain experience (what they've done in the past).
 
icyrus said:
How do you define and measure objective merit?
Click to expand...

If you have an objective PM/boss: Person A's quality/speed of work is better than Person B, therefore he gets more [insert reward here]

Although I do not mind (that much) sharing the maximum reward with everybody, I really do mind getting "penalised" because some other lazy idiot can't do his job.
 
Hamster said:
If you have an objective PM/boss: Person A's quality/speed of work is better than Person B, therefore he gets more [insert reward here]

Although I do not mind (that much) sharing the maximum reward with everybody, I really do mind getting "penalised" because some other lazy idiot can't do his job.
Click to expand...

It doesn't even have to be 100% objective. If I'm rated as the boundary of the 90th percentile, instead of the 95th percentile, it's no big deal - I would still do way better than in a traditional
"here's a couple of percent for your efforts" company. If I'm rated as the median, where I should be in the 95th percentile, then management is incompetent, and it's just a bad company. If you're good (even with a sizablemargin of error), you want a meritocracy, if you're average, or below average, you don't. The important thing is that talent is rewarded significantly and slacking is penalized heavily.
 
I would ask:
- how many single decent looking women will there be in my team?
- How much is the good coffee in the canteen ?
- is there a free to use coffee vending machine ?
- What are the rules regarding Internet use?
- how much ram will my PC have ?
- Are there any Stormers or Sharks supporters in the building ?
 
zippy said:
I would ask:
- how many single decent looking women will there be in my team?
- How much is the good coffee in the canteen ?
- is there a free to use coffee vending machine ?
- What are the rules regarding Internet use?
- how much ram will my PC have ?
- Are there any Stormers or Sharks supporters in the building ?
Click to expand...

If somebody asks me the first question, the interview is pretty much over. It is a workplace, not a dating service.
 
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