My interview questions to the interviewer (finding my dream job)

After making a rather public announcement about my mission to find a dream job many asked me- what is your dream job? Some, many, indicated that there is no such thing and that you do not know- cannot know for sure. Yes. No shit Sherlock!* (*My favorite reply when people say things that are given). It cannot be perfect, but I can certainly get very close. And I want to see how close, being willing to do what that requires of me.

EF (Education First) dev team in Shanghai. Tour around the office after a double interview. EF ticks many boxes, they have great practices and seems like a great place to work!

So how do I come close the perfecting in my quest? I do what I’ve always done, I ask questions- (Stupid Question of the Day) without fear for how they might be interpreted or how the questions might reflect on me. Here are the questions I ask the company I’m applying for (usually after or during the first interview). These are raw notes from my OneNote- I use the notes while asking and there are more questions than these (these act more like reminders). The focus areas for me are:

About the company (to learn more about the company and product)

Hard questions and sensitive questions– how do they deal with difficulties

Practicalities (since I might be relocating I need to consider a few more things)

Professional development (how much can I grow as a developer there?)

Start (how am I integrated in the team and product/project)

Team (what is the culture, diversity and inner groupings)

Tools and practices/processes (are these up to date, good practices?, can I learn something new?)

Rasums (director of recruitment) at EF and me. Almost a whole day was spent talking, eating and interviewing at the EF Shanghai office last week - and it was one of the few pleasant experiences I’ve had with an interview process. Rasmus is Swedish- I wonder if that had anything to do with it?

Supporting the community is important for me. Here is a last minute UG on node.js held at the EF office . Big attendance with just 5 days notice! (location: Shanghai). Troy and I arrived late due to train problems- but @substack had full control :) (of course)

My raw notes:

About the company (to learn more about the company and product)

What are the products and competitors?

What do they consider to be their biggest challenges?

What are they currently working on?

What is the business model (B2B, B2V, B2L)?

How is the company structured?

How is the company growth?

Hard questions and sensitive questions (how do they deal with difficulties)

What is the staff turnover rate?

Example of somebody that was let go

Procedures for dealing with developers that fail to deliver

How common is it that there isn’t a hire after a probation period?

Do they have provide information on bullying, harassment and similar?

Do they provide confidentiality agreements between line manager and employee (for example)?

Is communication monitored? (email, social media, forums etc.)

Practicalities (since I might be relocating I need to consider a few more things)

Salary and expected increases (performance based or default)

Vacation

Public holidays

Private health insurance

Probation period and leave notification

Contract length and leave notification (F.ex. China Max 1yr at the time)

Relocation help

Temporary apartment for probation period

Visa- time, cost, etc.

Work computer and phone provided?

Fringe benefits

Flex hours?

Pension

Remote?

Professional development (how much can I grow as a developer there?)

Professional development

Career paths

Possibility to change team

Conference ’ allowances'

Does the company sponsor or organize events or groups?

Training budget for the teams?

How much time a month for skill developing?

Learning at the workplace efforts? (brown bag lunches, training and more)

Start (how am I integrated in the team and product/project)

How do the first few months look like

Training provided

Junior vs. Senior ratio

Ask to talk to a recent hire at same level

Integration?

Team (what is the culture, diversity and inner groupings)

Pairing (if any how often, do developers want to)

Code reviews (how often and how)

Social activities

Inner groupings (expat vs locals, new vs old)

Age span

Diversity (culture and gender)

Company structure (hierarchical or flat)

Conflict management

Coding standards and conventions?

OSS projects? Use of OSS?

How much is NDAed? (transparency)

Frequency of meetings? Type of meetings?

Can I work undisturbed?

Tools and practices/processes (are these up to date, good practices?, can I learn something new?)

Continuous integration (how etc)

if yes, what fails a build?

Version control, hosted where

Testing (QA) practices

Scrum (how long sprints?)

Languages, platform and technologies

Versions used

Development methodologies? (TDD etc.)

Documentation practices and tools

Ticket system and practices

IDE licenses and tools (R# for example)

My interview questions to the interviewer (finding my dream job)

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