Questions I Ask Companies in Interviews

Published May 22, 2022 in Career, Interviewing

Inspired by Julia Evans’s post Questions I’m asking in interviews and Chip Huyen’s Questions to ask your interviewers section from her ML Interviews book, here are the questions I ask in interviews, targeting staff roles in ML infrastructure.

Overview

My general approach is:

Have 3-5 “primary” questions that cover the most important things.
Have a backlog of 20 questions that I can fire off as necessary. I never want to run out of questions or repeat a question in an interview.
Only ask “hard questions” after getting a job offer.

Recruiter-focused questions
- What rubrics will I be evaluated on?
- What kinds of questions should I be prepared for?
Team Alignment
- How fast are you growing and how is headcount allocated between teams?
- Who is competing for scope with your team (internal and external)?
- How many headcount do you have open right now?
Career
- When does the career ladder split between IC and management? What does that transition look like? How often do opportunities at that level come about?
- How easy is it to change teams at the company if things don’t work out?
Enjoyment
- What are the working hours like? When do most people work?
- What does your day look like?
- What do you like about working on this team? At this company?
Technology
- What’s your tech stack like?
- Do you have an oncall rotation and what is it like?
- Do you standardize tech across teams?
- What is your process for big projects? Do you write design docs? Do you have design reviews?
- How much tech debt do you have?
- How are tech teams organized? By technology or by product?
- What is the release cadence?
Leadership
- What is your decision making process?
- What are you looking for in employees and leaders?
- Who is the ultimate decision maker?