A standard set of questions to ask an interviewer?

Question

We have had many questions for interviewers to ask interviewees. But none addressing information flow in the other direction, interviewee to interviewer. Just an indirect question about "deal breakers" and one about "finding dream jobs".

What I'm after is when you're interviewing at a company do you have a set of questions that you like to ask to help get a feel for the company and the work environment?

I have a series of questions that I like to ask that range from the development environment to testing techniques to how the team get on together.

Anything else you'd like to ask?

Edit: I moved my original list of interviewer questions to my answer below. I've also gone through the other answers and added the ones thought were useful in to that answer. The answer is community wiki so feel free to add anything useful.

N.B. This is my first cut of categories. Feel free to modify/add/etc. the categories. Or to recategorise the questions themselves.

Answer 1

"Can I see the desk where I will be working please?"

It never ceases to amaze me how companies with really good looking meeting rooms can have such scummy offices.

Answer 2

• What's your staff turnover rate?
• What's the worst project you've ever been on here?

Answer 3

"Does your web proxy block Stack Overflow?"

Answer 4

Not so much an answer, but a subordinate question - what to do when some of the question aren't satisfactory answered? What point (percentage of points?) should you be prepared to cede to get a job in real world?

Answer 5

For the manager:

• style of managing
• how s/he motivates people
• how problems are handled (I leave that open-ended to see what sort of problem they assume--relating to those under them or those over them or issues unrelated to people at all, and then ask about whichever they didn't cover).
• what the company does to help develop their managment skills
• what motivates them
• how much they work (typical hours/schedule)
• what accomplishment they are most proud of (I don't specify work-related, and if they mention something besides that I ask about work as well)
• how they develop team cohesiveness and what they've been able to accomplish in that area
• what they see as the next big step for the team, for the company, and in dealing with projects or whatever the main mission of the group is

Then I ask them to answer the same kinds of questions for the company as a whole, explaining that I consider there's such a thing as a company "personality" that usually emanates from the top. I ask how that has changed over the years (if they've been there very long).

If I get the chance, I like to ask peers the same kinds of things.

There are no "right or wrong" answers to these necessarily. I'm just trying to get a feel for the atmosphere and whether I think it matches what I feel most comfortable with. So many other things can be adapted to or changed, but the way people are, as individuals and as a group, is much more difficult to change and has a huge impact on job satisfaction. A big warning flag for me is a manager who not only cannot answer many of these questions, but seems never even to have thought about them.

Answer 6

This depends a bit upon how far into the interviewing process you are, but some of the questions that I'm usually interested in getting an answer to are the following:

• What sort of equipment do you provide to your developers? For example, are all developers given a laptop to work with, do they have access to two monitors, are they allowed to order other equipment (e.g. ergonomic keyboard)?
• Do you offer your developers any sort of allowance to order technical books?
• Do you have any policies against employees listening music while they work?
• How much work do you expect developers do outside of the normal business day?

Answer 7

How long does the typical hiree at my level stay with the company?

(Similar to Airsource's staff turnover question, but more specific to this position).

Answer 8

I always ask why the interviewers works there (or likes working there, or continutes to work there, etc). Their responses usually give me a good feel for the company.

Answer 9

At a meta-level, I've found it helpful to ask the same or similar questions of multiple interviewers, especially when it comes to culture or team growth/direction questions. It can be helpful to judge how cohesive of a vision the group. For places with less consistent answers across people, it can give an idea of what kind of diversity of opinion is present.

Answer 10

Ask not what the company can do for you; ask what you can do for the company.

How about:

• How can I help you?
• What are your biggest needs right now?
• What kind of things would you want someone in this position to do?
• If you choose me, are there things I could read about your problem domain that would help me be effective on day one?

All of your questions assume an assymmetry of power that favors the job-seeker, which I suppose is nice if you're lucky, but probably doesn't mesh with reality.

Yes, we want to ensure we have a good situation for ourselves, but if I were interviewing someone who seemed to display an attitude that they were entitled to a quality workspace without a reciprocal commitment from them to help my business, I would consider it a turn-off.

I like the Joel test, and if you're talented enough that you are choosing among job offers, it can be a useful tool.

But as a candidate, I'd want to get across that I'm more interested in helping the company achieve its goals than how big my monitor is or where people go to lunch.

Answer 11

I'd also ask about these areas:

1) What software development methodology do you use, e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, XP? This would be a big one for me that you left out though this may fall under coding standards.

2) What parts of the software development life cycle do developers do?

3) What is the breakdown of a developer's day, e.g. how much time for support or troubleshooting, how much time for coding, analysing requirements, etc.?

4) How are projects categorized, e.g. changes compared to a small project compared to a big project?

5) What kind of management is there within the company, e.g. is the development manager also the project manager or are these separate people usually?

6) What kind of feedback mechanism is there for determining employee performance, e.g. how often is my work evaluated and suggestions given on where to improve?

7) Is there a dress code? Do employees work a fixed set of hours? Is there any on-call time as part of the job?

8) Give me an example of a code review that is done here. Are there different levels of a review, e.g. new system is handled in a day long explanation compared to a quick bug fix that is needed ASAP.

9) How are conflicts resolved between testers and developers? I ask this because there have been times in the past where I see finger pointing of "Well, I interpreted it this way and he interpreted that," enough to make me ask how is this handled.

10) How are requests for large changes to be done quickly handled? For example, someone requests a web application that would normally take 2 weeks be done in 2 days for a prospective client that could be a big account.

11) Do you encourage employees to set goals and provide incentives to meet those goals? Is self-improvement a value common to this organization?

I'd also look to see how my questions are viewed, such as do some questions seem so typical that the answer is straightforward and it shouldn't be brought up yet or is there some discussion about what I'm asking, what kind of work environments have I worked that were good, what about the bad ones or at least bad practices at one.

Some of these may be simple or obvious but I like to be sure that when I ask a question it is properly answered as opposed to a "That doesn't happen here," answer for handling conflicts between developers and testers that do happen in most if not all places.

Answer 12

why did the guy i'm replacing leave?

Answer 13

• What's your company's Internet policy? What sites do you block? (I've worked at places where you can't access various good technical sites.)

• Please can I see my workplace?

• How many people have left in the last year and why did they leave?

• Can I please speak informally to some of the people in the team I'll be joining? (Useful to get beyond the management BS and get a feel for the real deal.)

• How locked down are the PC’s? (I’ve worked at companies where the PC’s are so locked down it’s almost impossible to do any work e.g. no access to command prompt.)

• Do developers have admin rights on their PC’s? (Rule of thumb – The more locked down the PC, the worse the company. The real development sites I’ve worked at give all developers admin rights. They trust and empower them with corresponding rises in productivity.)

• What’s the company’s policy to downloading software? (I’ve worked at places where you can download zip so it takes a week to get the help team to download the hex editor you needed yesterday.)

• What software is loaded by default on a standard developer PC? (e.g. Can I use Eclipse or am I condemned to Notepad hell).

• Do you use a software repository? (If the answer is no, walk out).

Answer 14

• Can I choose my own development tools? What is the budget for tools?

• Same question for operating system?

• Can I work irregular hours if I need to (eg: at night, all the week's hours in 2 days)?

• Can I work from home?

• (If they use continuous integration) does your software build and test cleanly right now? What's the current successful build rate?

Answer 15

Edit: I don't think it is reasonable to ask all of these at one interview. I've just listed all questions that were suggested in the answers provided.

I'd pick between five and eight questions that are important to you. Maybe you could ask more if you have several interviews scheduled. If that is the case you could even tailor the questions to suit.

I start with the Joel test and work from there.

A most important question:

Does your web proxy block Stack Overflow?

Questions for development:

1. What software development methodology do you use, e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, XP?
2. Is training provided for the methodology being used?
3. What parts of the software development life cycle do developers do?
4. What is the breakdown of a developer's day, e.g. how much time for support or troubleshooting, how much time for coding, analysing requirements, etc.?
5. How long does your design, code and test cycle last? Less than thirty seconds, less than five minutes, less than ten minutes, etc.
6. Do you encourage refactoring if sufficient unit tests exist?
7. What test bench do you use?
8. Do you have coding standards?
9. Are the standards revisited or are they just left, as written, i.e. "carved in stone", in 2001?
10. Do you allow time for peer reviews of code?
11. Can you give me an example of a code review that is done here. Are there different levels of a review, e.g. new system is handled in a day long explanation compared to a quick bug fix that is needed ASAP.
12. Does the project use continuous integration?
13. (If they use continuous integration) does your software build and test cleanly right now? What's the current successful build rate?
14. Does the project have regular regression testing?
15. Are metrics kept for the code base? SLOC? Numbers of unit tests? Numbers of regression tests?
16. How are conflicts resolved between testers and developers? I ask this because there have been times in the past where I see finger pointing of "Well, I interpreted it this way and he interpreted that," enough to make me ask how is this handled.
17. How are requests for large changes to be done quickly handled? For example, someone requests a web application that would normally take 2 weeks be done in 2 days for a prospective client that could be a big account.
18. Do you use a software repository? (If the answer is no, walk out).
19. What is the budget for tools?
20. Do you offer your developers any sort of allowance to order technical books?

Questions about estimating:

1. Do you have a standard template for estimating development effort for new work to make sure nothing is overlooked?
2. A process for obtaining such an estimate?
3. What percentage of contingency do you build in to your estimates?
4. Do you allow time to revisit

Questions regarding the team:

1. What has the team achieved so far?
2. What has the team learnt?
3. What aspects of the team would you like to change to improve the team?
4. What's the team spirit like?
5. Where do team members generally have lunch?
6. Does the team go out together every now and then?
7. Do you encourage team members to give presentations to improve their abilities?
8. Do you do the same with writing?
9. Can I please speak informally to some of the people in the team I'll be joining? (Useful to get beyond the management BS and get a feel for the real deal.)

Questions regarding personnel type policies:

1. Does the company have a training policy?
2. What were the latest courses that the company sent people on?
3. Does the company have a mentoring policy?
4. What kind of feedback mechanism is there for determining employee performance, e.g. how often is my work evaluated and suggestions given on where to improve?
5. Is there a dress code? Do employees work a fixed set of hours?
6. Is there any on-call time as part of the job?
7. Do you encourage employees to set goals and provide incentives to meet those goals?
8. Is self-improvement a value common to this organization?
9. What's your company's Internet policy?
10. What sites do you block? (I've worked at places where you can't access various good technical sites.)
11. Can I work irregular hours if I need to? For examle, at night, all the week's hours in 2 days?
12. Can I work from home?
13. Do you have any policies against employees listening music while they work?
14. How much work do you expect developers do outside of the normal business day?

Questions about management:

For the manager:

1. What is your style of managing?
2. How s/he motivates people
3. How problems are handled (I leave that open-ended to see what sort of problem they assume--relating to those under them or those over them or issues unrelated to people at all, and then ask about whichever they didn't cover).
4. What the company does to help develop their managment skills
5. What motivates them
6. How much they work (typical hours/schedule)
7. What accomplishment they are most proud of (I don't specify work-related, and if they mention something besides that I ask about work as well)
8. How they develop team cohesiveness and what they've been able to accomplish in that area
9. What they see as the next big step for the team, for the company, and in dealing with projects or whatever the main mission of the group is

Then I ask them to answer the same kinds of questions for the company as a whole, explaining that I consider there's such a thing as a company "personality" that usually emanates from the top. I ask how that has changed over the years (if they've been there very long).

Further questions on management:

1. What's your staff turnover rate?
2. What's the worst project you've ever been on here?
3. How long does the typical hiree at my level stay with the company?
4. How are projects categorized, e.g. changes compared to a small project compared to a big project?
5. What kind of management is there within the company, e.g. is the development manager also the project manager or are these separate people usually?

Questions on the work environment:

1. Can I please see my workplace?
2. And, more specifically, can I see the desk where I will be working please?
3. What’s the company’s policy to downloading software? (I’ve worked at places where you can download zip so it takes a week to get the help team to download the hex editor you needed yesterday.)
4. How locked down are the PC’s? (I’ve worked at companies where the PC’s are so locked down it’s almost impossible to do any work e.g. no access to command prompt.)
5. Do developers have admin rights on their PC’s? (Rule of thumb – The more locked down the PC, the worse the company. The real development sites I’ve worked at give all developers admin rights. They trust and empower them with corresponding rises in productivity.)
6. What software is loaded by default on a standard developer PC? For example, can I use Eclipse or am I condemned to Notepad hell).
7. Can I choose my own development tools?
8. What sort of equipment do you provide to your developers? For example, are all developers given a laptop to work with, do they have access to two monitors, are they allowed to order other equipment (e.g. ergonomic keyboard)?

Miscellaneous questions:

1. Why did the guy I'm replacing leave?
2. How can I help you?
3. What are your biggest needs right now?
4. What kind of things would you want someone in this position to do?
5. If you choose me, are there things I could read about your problem domain that would help me be effective on day one?
6. Why the interviewer(s) work(s) there (or likes working there, or continutes to work there, etc). Their responses usually give me a good feel for the company.

Answer 16

I ask one additional question that isn't here yet with some followups:

• Am I being hired to work on a new project or maintain an existing project
  • Maintain:
    • How many others work (or have worked) on this project and for how long?
    • What version is it at, and how long has it been in the wild?
  • New:
    • Usually I ask a question that would indicate what kind of software it is
    • What's the timeline like for when it will be released?
    • How many people are on the project team?

If they say 'both' for the first question, I usually start to worry. Not that there is anything wrong with working on multiple projects, but in my experience, the projects usually have timelines that don't take into account that you're not going to be focusing on just that project.

Answer 17

• Thinking about the last person who departed your team. Why did s/he leave?
• Thinking about the last person who joined your team. What about that person made him or her stand out from the rest? Why did you select that person?
• What was the last cool thing you learned?