Questions I'm asking on interviews

List of questions that I usually ask on interviews
November 24, 2023

Switch jobs is an usual thing in the IT world. Know also if the company you're interviewing for could be a fit for you is imprescindible too. This is a list of questions that I like to ask; maybe more as a cheatsheet of things I'd like to know than a real list of questions.

Note:

  • I don't ask everything written here always.
  • I don't ask everything on the first interviews.
  • Often, ask the same question to different people helps.

Engineering:

  • How code reviews are done?
    • Also, is usual to do pair programming/mob programming?
  • How the code is tested?
    • Involving test practices, test types, etc
  • How the delivery/deployment process works?
    • How failures are handled (bugs in production, for example)?
  • Which is the seniority of the team?
    • Which is the balance junior/senior?
    • Which are the capabilities expected from an engineer in the company (specialization, hands on on everything,…)

Management

  • How the work is assigned?
  • How technical decissions are made and communicated?
    • Involving architecture, infrastructure, etc.
  • How priorities regarding product-techDebt-support are balanced?
  • How often there are meetings in the team? How often there are meetings between other teams?
  • How disagreements are solved in a team?
    • Technicals and non-technicals
  • There's on-call assignment? If so, how it's compensated? Developers are included on it?
  • How is performance evaluated?

Quality of life

  • How much vacation people get?
    • If they're “unlimited”, how much vacations people usually take?
  • Is the work schedule flexible or people are expected to work at fixed hours?
  • Does the position require to travel?

Culture

  • How does Ops/Devops/Infra works? Central team, responsibilities distributed in teams?
    • You build it-you run it approach or Dev and Ops are separated?
  • How big is the team? Where is it located? The communication is sync or async based?
  • Do you have fixed salary tiers or negotiate with each employee?
  • Is the position a new one or to replace someone?
  • What’s the onboarding process like?

More to add…