Interviewing

I have spent a fair amount of time interviewing potential candidates for jobs. As an interviewer, questions generally focus on evaluating cultural fit and technical qualities. Recently, I was on the other side of that table, and woe, things are a little different there.

As an interviewee, I am focused on painting a picture of future self, working at said company, doing (insert what I’d be doing) that impacts (insert way of measuring success). While interviewing, I was surprised to see interviewers so focused on fit, that they spent little time explaining what the job actually is. Here is what I did to fill in the blanks (or parentheses).

Typically, my first question centered on how I could help said company grow. To find out how success is measured, I would ask “Are there any major deadlines or milestones that the company is working towards”, or “What deliverables is your team trying to meet right now?”. Next, I would look for contribution opportunities. “What would you say the strengths and weaknesses of your dev team are, both technically and non-technically?” and “What kind of developer are you looking for?”. Both questions revealed current needs.

For the next bit, I would try to find out what I would be doing. Questions like “How are your developer teams organized?” and “What is your management style/philosophy?” could explain the overall feel of their current structure, which often led to questions about process, like “How would I know what to work on next?”, “What does pair programming look like at said company?” and “I’m more experienced in test driven design than test driven development. How do you currently integrate testing into your development cycle?”.

Ideally, answers would form a logical story about why, and how said company hoped to get work done. And hopefully, I could imagine being the who. It didn’t always work out that way, but I was glad to have asked it when it was abundantly clear that the company needed a certain skill set that I did not currently posses!

Interviewing can be rough, especially when you are constantly being evaluated and judged. Having a little power during the “3–4 questions that you can ask” time can be a real confidence booster, if nothing else.