79 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
# Reverse interview
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This is a list of questions which may be interesting to a tech job applicant.
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The points are not ordered and many may not apply to a given position, or work type.
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It was started as my personal list of questions, which grew over time to include both things I'd like to see more of and red flags which I'd like to avoid.
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I've also noticed how few questions were asked by people I interviewed and I think those were missed opportunities.
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If you asked something not listed here, send in a PR.
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## Expected usage
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- Check which questions are interesting for you specifically
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- Check which answers you can find yourself online
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- Otherwise ask
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Definitely don't try to ask everything from the list.
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Remember that things tend to be fluid, re-organizations happens often.
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Having a bug tracking system doesn't make bug handling efficient and CI/CD doesn't mean your time to deliver is necessarily short.
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# The Role
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- What's the on-call plan/schedule? (what's the pay for standby and call-out)
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- What are the tasks I would do on a usual day?
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- What's the junior/senior balance of the team? (and are there plans to change it)
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- What does the onboarding look like?
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- How much independent action vs working off a provided list is expected?
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- What are the expected/core work hours?
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# Tech
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- What are the usual stacks used at the company?
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- Do you use source control?
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- Do you test code?
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- Do you use bug tracking?
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- Do you use CI/CD?
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- Is your infrastructure setup under version control / available as code?
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- What's the workflow from the planning to the finished task?
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- Do you have backups / disaster recovery plan?
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- Is there a standardised development environment? Is it enforced?
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- How quickly can you setup a new local test environment for the product? (minutes / hours / days)
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- How quickly can you respond to security issues in the code or dependencies?
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# The Team
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- How is the work organised?
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- How does the intra/inter-team communication typically work?
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- How are differences of opinions resolved?
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- Who sets the priorities / schedule?
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- What happens after pushback? ("this can't be done in the projected time")
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- What kind of meetings happen every week?
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- What's the product/service schedule? (n-weekly releases / continuous deployment / multiple release streams / ...)
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# The Company
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- Where does the funding come from and who decides the high level plan/direction?
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- Is there a conference/travel budget and what are the rules to use it?
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- What's the promotion process? How are requirements / expectations communicated?
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- Is there a separate tech and management career path?
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- How much annual / personal / sick / parental / unpaid leave is available?
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- What's the status of / view on diverse hiring?
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- Are there any company-wide resources for learning available, like ebooks subscriptions, or online courses?
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- Is there a budget for getting certifications?
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- What's the maturity stage? (early finding direction / feature work / maintenance / ...)
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- Can I contribute to FOSS projects? Are there any approvals needed?
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# Remote Work
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- What's the ratio of remote to office workers?
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- Does the company provide hardware and what's the refresh schedule?
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- Are extra accessories/furniture possible to buy through the company? Is there a budget for them?
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- How often are office visits expected?
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- Are the office meeting rooms always prepared for video conferences?
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# Office Work
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- What's the office layout? (open plan / cubicles / offices)
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- Is there a support / marketing / other call-heavy team close to my new team?
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