Interviewing

Questions for the Interviewer

1. How do you feel the company rewards achievement? This is my favorite question because it seems to produce a different reaction every time, sometimes with them squirming uncomfortably.
   • Some interviewers will give a generic bullshit answer: there are no rewards. This is OK at best, but if everything else is good including salary, I’ll move forward.
   • Many interviewers are caught off guard because they don’t immediately have a great answer and have to think about it: there are no rewards, and also the interviewer sucks. I’m slightly less likely to take this opportunity seriously.
   • Some interviewers even react poorly as if they believe employees should not be asking about rewards: bad attitude, definitely don’t waste any more time.
   • Rarely, the interviewer will be able to list off great programs and incentives for employees who succeed without even having to think about it: If the programs include getting your name mentioned at the next townhall meeting, fine answer. If the incentive is some kind of payout, great answer.
2. How do you like your job? Another favorite of mine. It’s just a good question in general. Pay close attention to their expressions and eyes. Everybody always answers that they like it; that’s just being cordial. Their face will give you the real answer.
3. Do you believe that there’ll be more upside once you join? In other words, I want more money. Will salaries go up? Will the company IPO and realize your equity, etc.? Remember that if a company with 500m funding gets 1b funding next, unless shares are diluted, your equity effectively doubled.
4. How many hours a week do you expect this role to spend in meetings? All meetings is tough as you’re effectively tied to your screen. Medium amount can be OK because you at least have an excuse if you don’t get a ton accomplished. None is also good as long as their expectations are low.
5. How flexible is the schedule if I need to run errands, as long as I’m getting my work done? This is obvious. It’s a round about way of asking, “are you going to micromanage me?” and “Is there a culture here of being able to just not work on the clock for a while and no one cares?”
6. What is the team’s cadence? What’s the general day to day communication look like? Do people often ping and chat with each other or do pair programming? Are people going to notice if I step out?
7. How large is the team? A large team means work is diluted a lot. A small team means you end up in a “wear many hats” situation.
8. What are your thoughts on asynchronous work? You can literally be gone during the day and have a valid reason. “I work best in the afternoon.”
9. Does the team prioritize meetings or documentation? Talking all day and never writing anything down is just an “all talk, no walk” attitude. Documentation should always be utilized to prevent communicative overhead.
10. Is there an expectation of cameras on during meetings? This is more of a preference. I like cameras on.
11. How does the team minimize disruptions? A polite way of saying “I want to be left alone for the most part so I can just get work done.”
12. How does the team get solid focus time in? Same as above
13. What project methodology does your team use? Fuck waterfall. It implies deadlines. Agile means “what gets done gets done 🤷” More conducive to taking your time and low stress.
14. How does the workload break down between meetings, collaborative work and solo work? Probing directly for info on paired work. And also if there’s a lot of meetings.
15. What is your leadership style? Will you micromanage me?
16. What keeps you up at night about this job? Is it high stress?
17. How do you normally propagate status updates to your managers and stakeholders? Do I have to answer to middle management directly or is that someone else’s issue after we don’t meet deadlines.
18. What is your meeting culture like, and how do employees handle things like zoom fatigue? Are we gonna be glue to the damn camera for 8 hours a day and if there’s a lot of meetings, are employees allowed to say “fuck, I need a break” and not attend some?
19. What is something that you admire in a peer?
20. How would you describe the work life balance?
21. How much vacation do you usually take per year?
22. What are some pain points in your day to day?
23. How much autonomy do you have in your work?
24. What do you like about working here?
25. What does on-call look like?