How to check if potential employer uses rich programming environment

Question

Lately I was thinking about job interviews. Most of time you can see information about how to look for a employer, how much you can earn or what do you look for in new employer and how to show from your best side.

My concern is slightly different. You go to job interview to a employer you would like to work for next 1 or 2 years (or more). The job offer you found in newspaper or on the job offer website was "has everything" one. It is fitting your experience and money thing looks ok.

But in the advertisement there is no information about what environment you will be working in. If you will learn new stuff and get new experiences.

So I would like to know how to examine future employer if I will be working in rich development environment, where I will learn the "state of art" techniques of software development.

To be more specific I would like to point out some parts of "state of art" techniques that I am talking about, but these are only examples, you can think about something totally different when talking about "rich software development".

My examples are: unit testing, using known and good methodology of developing software, short cycles, full cycles (project, development, testing, release), work types divided into people (everyone does what he is good in, not everything).

So there are some things that can decide that work with your future employer will be very rich experience in your programming life or not.

And as mather of fact - you will not know this from job offer and from job interview if you do not make the effort to ask right questions!

This questions can be simple like "do you use unit testing" to some specific and more tricky like "what methodology do you like the best".

After asking this questions to several employers it would be easier for me to make effort to choose work environment where I can develop my skills on the high level.

So my question is - what questions ask on job interview to check how rich will be my work experience with this particular, potential employer?

Answer 1

Ask the company if they pass the Joel Test

Answer 2

Ask them in a way which presupposes they do, i.e. "What unit-testing framework do you use?" and don't be afraid to run through a checklist of these questions. I made that mistake once; never again.

If they stumble, waffle or fail to answer, well that's a "no".

Answer 3

Other thing you might try is asking for a small tour through the development facilities and see if you can chat for a few minutes with some of the developers so you can ask more about the development tools and processes.

Any company that is afraid of letting you speak with the development team might not be worth working for.

On the other side, if the company is really a good place to work they should be proud of what the rest of the team might tell you.

Answer 4

+1 for asking more info on the interview. The interview should also be useful for you too and you should use it to decide if you really want to work there.

Answer 5

Another possibility is to spend some time on social sites like LinkedIn to build a sizeable network. Once you have 20+ connections in a certain geographical area, chances are high that one of your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd-level network members is working as a developer in your target company.

Then ask for an introduction, and email the person directly - be upfront about what you want to know; developers love sharing this kind of information. This allows you do your homework as thoroughly as you want it to be, given enough time.

Answer 6

Good question. The interview is a two way process. I usually ask a fairly open question like "tell me about your development process". This can promote a good discussion on things like design, build, testing.

Answer 7

This questions can be simple like "do you use unit testing" to some specific and more tricky like "what methodology do you like the best".

I don't think either of this are useful things to ask in an interview. I'd rather ask a more general and broad, "What kinds of testing do you do?" and "What methodology do you use here?" so that the answer isn't a simple, "Yes we do that here," or "We use best practices for everything here," type answers that to my mind reek of BS though they may give that as an honest response it will still be a yellow flag from my view.

what questions ask on job interview to check how rich will be my work experience with this particular, potential employer?

My questions in this area usually center on mechanics within the software development of the company like what bug tracking/project management system do they use, how good is a typical developer's machine(do they know or would it be something to look up), where are specifications stored, what methodology do they use, are there core hours and flex time or does everyone just work 8am-5pm. The key here is to see how easily the question is answered and where necessary follow-up questions do make sense like, "How well does that work here to do this?" I like to get a feel for the environment I'm joining and see if I did get this job would I have good tools and process to help me succeed or is it more of enlightening those at the company which tools and process can help things tremendously.

Don't forget that there is the potential for things to radically change at the company over time so that while someone may have said you'd get this and that, if that person leaves shortly after you are hired then you may not have all the goodies that you thought you'd get. This could be viewed as the typical YMMV sort of things.

Another aspect is to see who is doing the interviews. Is it just the hiring manager or are there other developers brought in for the "fit" interview? If the latter, you may want to ask the developer some questions as this may be a better way to see some of the insides of the company from a non-manager perspective.

Answer 8

1) Ask these questions of the people giving you technical interviews, not the management.

2) Limit your consideration to the present tense: it's easy to promise that the company will one day do something, but that's an unhatched chicken.