So, after all my ranting about the current job, I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm actively looking again.
What might be a surprise is that I'm tired of hating my job, and am therefore going to actively interview any company that wants to hire me. To that end, I've built up a list of questions that I want answers to. This is heavily tech job oriented (specifically, either sysadmin or developer), so might not be totally useful to everybody. However, I'd still like feedback.
In the questions below, I make reference to "The Joel Test" and "Joel Test Updates". These are simple yes/no questions meant to help a developer get a feel for how seriously the company takes it development practices. If you want more information, click on those links.
After going through the questions I've got below, what would you all think I should ask? What did I miss? What would you drop, and why? Feedback is very requested, so please, help a guy out?
General Work Questions:
Benefits:
Successes and Failures:
Technology:
System Administrator Role:
Developer Role:
The Joel Test:
Joel Test Updates:
What might be a surprise is that I'm tired of hating my job, and am therefore going to actively interview any company that wants to hire me. To that end, I've built up a list of questions that I want answers to. This is heavily tech job oriented (specifically, either sysadmin or developer), so might not be totally useful to everybody. However, I'd still like feedback.
In the questions below, I make reference to "The Joel Test" and "Joel Test Updates". These are simple yes/no questions meant to help a developer get a feel for how seriously the company takes it development practices. If you want more information, click on those links.
After going through the questions I've got below, what would you all think I should ask? What did I miss? What would you drop, and why? Feedback is very requested, so please, help a guy out?
General Work Questions:
- What are intra-office and inter-office communications like (IM? email? phone? mail?) ?
- What program or platform is used for email?
- What are the company’s priorities? Is it money first, or quality of life, or helping the community?
- Can I meet some of my future teammates?
- Do I maintain copyright/patent/trademark on the things I do at home in my own time that has nothing to do with the job?
- Can I get a copy of any employment agreements I have to sign (non-compete, non-disclosure, IP assignment) before accepting an offer of employment?
Benefits:
- Is telecommuting an option?
- Which location will I be working out of?
- What is the salary range for this position at this company?
- Are there any other benefits not yet mentioned?
Successes and Failures:
- What is the greatest business success so far?
- What is the greatest technical success so far?
- What is the greatest social/interpersonal success within the company so far?
- What is the biggest business failure so far?
- What is the biggest technical failure so far?
- What is the biggest social/interpersonal failure within the company so far?
Technology:
- What programming languages are used here, and why?
- What data storage is used here, and why (MySQL, Mongo, etc)?
- What other technologies are used here, and why?
- How open to changes is the company?
System Administrator Role:
- How many machines are being maintained by my team?
- What operating systems?
- What are the functions of the most important machines?
- How are backups maintained?
- Does a disaster recovery site exist, and when was the last successful test if so?
Developer Role:
- What methodology (Agile, Scrum, XP, etc) gets used, and why? And why not something else?
- Can I see a code sample?
The Joel Test:
- Do you use source control?
- Can everyone make a build in one step?
- Do you make daily builds?
- Do you have a bug/feature/work item database?
- Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
- Do you have an up-to-date schedule?
- Do you have a spec?
- Do programmers have quiet working conditions?
- Do you use the best tools money can buy?
- Do you have testers?
- Do new candidates write code during their interview?
- Do you do hallway usability testing?
Joel Test Updates:
- Do you have a change management system?
- Do the daily builds include automated tests?
- Is work item tracking integrated with source control?
- Do you have a requirements management system?
- Do you track progress and manage change?
- Do programmers have teaming rooms?
- Are your testers involved in requirements management?
- Do new candidates review code during their interview?
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