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Programming

The Really Important Job Interview Questions Engineers Should Ask (But Don't) (posthog.com) 185

James Hawkins: Since we started PostHog, our team has interviewed 725 people. What's one thing I've taken from this? It's normal for candidates not to ask harder questions about our company, so they usually miss out on a chance to (i) de-risk our company's performance and (ii) to increase the chances they'll like working here.

Does the company have product-market fit? This is the single most important thing a company can do to survive and grow.
"Do you ever question if you have product-market fit?"
"When did you reach product-market fit? How did you know?"
"What do you need to do to get to product-market fit?"
"What's your revenue? What was it a year ago?"
"How many daily active users do you have?"

It's ok if these answers show you the founder doesn't have product market fit. In this case, figure out if they will get to a yes. Unless you want to join a sinking ship, of course! Early stage founders are (or should be) super-mega-extra-desperately keen to have product-market fit -- it's all that really matters. The ones that will succeed are those that are honest about this (or those that have it already) and are prioritizing it. Many will think or say (intentionally or through self-delusion) that they have it when they don't. Low user or revenue numbers and vague answers to the example questions above are a sign that it isn't there. Product-market fit is very obvious.

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The Really Important Job Interview Questions Engineers Should Ask (But Don't)

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  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:04PM (#62672820)

    What the f*** is a "PostHog" and why should we care?

    • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:07PM (#62672826)

      Probably a company that's paid Slashdot for advertising.

      • by dbialac ( 320955 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:59PM (#62672970)
        Why else would you find somebody so obsessed with saying, "product-market fit".
        • by LifesABeach ( 234436 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @04:24PM (#62673042) Homepage

          unicorns.
          why should an engineer be concerned with what marketing and sales croak as a new paradigm.
          questions i have when i am interviewed.
          1. is this company going to exist in 5 years. (covad proof)
          2. is this a marketing company
          3. how many sick days
          4. does this company offshore projects
          5. what is your personal view of the movie office space

          • Even very good companies in stable indusrries were not Covid proof, or Ukraine proof if their best developers worked in Ukraine. But these kind of questions make more sense.

          • Those are very good questions. I might use a couple of them.
            The one I always ask is "What is the bosses' background"? If the answer is finance, or "He used to be the companies' accountant" I say no thanks and leave.
        • "Product-market fit" is just a fancy way of saying "something people want". Which is a very dificult thing to build.

          • Mostly because they don’t know. However, there is good money to be made to guide them in the right direction.

            In German there is an expression called a Eierliegendewollmichsau. It means a pig with wool that can also lay eggs. Your job is to charge them to show them that this mythical animal does not exist and find them a better one.

      • "paid Slashdot for advertising"

        LOL at thinking someone would pay for this.

      • by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Figures a Product Analytics startup would want other people to ask their future emplolyes a question that entails buying a solution like theirs to answer the question.

    • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:26PM (#62672898)

      What the f*** is a "PostHog" and why should we care?

      It's a company that *really* wants people to know how much it wants people to ask about "product-market fit" ..

    • What the heck?

      A question like that is particular to a very specific business school world view. Questions about revenue and percentage of VC versus revenue based funding may be accessible, but most technology managers and certainly the HR department will not tell you this kind of answer, even if they happen to know. Many will toe the corporate mark about projecting growth to the market, whether based on reality or based on someone's fictional revenue growth charts.

      My deep skepticism about such invented sta

      • Yeah - it's a good question for investors to ask, but as an employee you're paying me to do a job, and financial investors generally recommend against investing heavily in your employer as a collapse will simultaneously screws both your income and assets.

        My interest in your company's long term viability is pretty limited:
        - are you paying me in stock(options) rather than cash?
        - are you likely to collapse before I move on in a few years? (since we both know that's the only way I'm likely to get raises that re

  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:08PM (#62672828)

    Ever; and I've been a dev for the past 25 year.

    • by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:11PM (#62672838)
      This is because you are not an MBA liberal arts manager obsessed with chasing trendy topics.
      • No, I actually have some work to do.

      • This is because you are not an MBA liberal arts manager obsessed with chasing trendy topics.

        Product Market Fit is just a fancy way of saying "is there someone who wants to buy your goods and services?" That seems rather obviously important and common sense. If the only thing keeping you afloat is VC capital and no one will want to buy your product in the future, then you're definitely joining a sinking ship. I've been contacted by many companies looking for engineers who had b2b products that seemed really pointless. In fact, I was assigned to one early in my career by my employer...it never g

        • Yeah, it means "someone will buy the product" like "female" means "concave genitaliea". It means whatever the hell the MBA defines it to mean.

        • The cool thing is being part of the group that builds a PMF. But I think the whole premise of the article is flawed: if you don't have a product market fit and you are interviewing and hiring in the traditional way, you're wasting money and almost certainly going to sink. At least that's the impression I get from listening to the YC startup school and from what I've seen in places I worked at.

          If you don't have PMF, you search for it with grim determination with a handful of people you trust completely and w

    • Interior crocodile alligator
      I drive a Chevrolet movie theater

      • by dbialac ( 320955 )
        No, you have that wrong. It's "I'm a product driver; a Chevrolet theater mover."
      • by znrt ( 2424692 )

        Interior crocodile alligator
        I drive a Chevrolet movie theater

        yes, yes, but does it fit the product market?

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      It appears to be a marketing tool developer. And as such, I'd expect them to be using a lot of marketing-speak. Particularly since the subject company is very new, very small and you might not be interviewed by some middle manager engineering type.

      If this was a larger, longer established company, this is probably something one could find out by doing their own research. But since this may be a novel product type, I'd like to ask the interviewer what a "product-market fit" is. From their point of view and s

    • by Evtim ( 1022085 ) on Tuesday July 05, 2022 @05:41AM (#62674226)

      Once the group leader at work (science and engineering), coming from a meeting with higher management said his new favorite word was "synergy". To which I laughed out loud and quoted this:

      “You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Gilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start."

      Terry Pratchett, Going postal

      BTW, what are you, computer nerds, going to do about Microsoft taking over our PCs? Did you know I was not able to find the quote from above via a Bing search....guess why? Also, check how the word "night" is forbidden in Minecraft... I think /. has been too nice to M$. Time to bring that old Borg image I guess.

  • by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:08PM (#62672830) Homepage

    While those are all important to the long term success of the company, they'd only matter to me as a job hunter if a significant portion of my compensation was to be in stock shares. Things like office space and the amount of work I can get done before having to gain action from a colleague are much more important to me.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      - How much does it pay?
      - How much were average raises in the past 3 years?
      - Are you expecting to at least match inflation this year?
      - What are the working hours?
      - Can I work from home, or at least hybrid?
      - What is the management structure like?
      - How much legacy crap am I going to have to deal with?

      I like to see the offices and what people are wearing. If the dress code isn't relaxed then I know the management is crap.

      • I'm not sure it would ever occur to me to ask about a dress code!

        I'm in my 40s and I've never worked somewhere that had one.

      • Yep - always remember, if you don't get a raise that at least matches inflation, you're actually getting a pay cut.

        Both parties originally agreed to an exchange of X amount of wealth in exchange for Y amount of work. X is usually measured in local currency for convenience, but it's the real wealth that you both actually care about. And if the real wealth being paid shrinks, that's a pay cut. It doesn't matter if it's because you're paid less currency, or because the currency is worth less.

        As for everythi

      • I think it depends where you are in the interview process. I've always been told never talk about money or benefits until you are at the job offer stage.

        During the initial interview (the screening one) as well as the offer interview, I will bring up salary - if I have a job already; if I don't I wait until the offer interview.

        For your first 3 questions, I'd ask those to the recruiter / HR rep. For the rest, I'd ask those to the hiring manager. The hiring manager knows you want to be paid well but it look

  • WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:09PM (#62672832) Homepage

    What utter nonsense. Is this an advert?

    • Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)

      by sinij ( 911942 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:12PM (#62672842)
      This is because paradigm-shifting out of the box thousand-mile view of synergies in Web 3.0 cloud-enabled SaaS is above your pay grade.
    • Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dvice ( 6309704 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:22PM (#62672872)

      Yes, it is nonsense and yes, it is an advert. Just to prove my point, even I would not like to sink on their level:
      - You can figure out answers to those questions before going to the interview. Or if you can't, you really should avoid the company.
      - There are much more important questions you need to ask. Like can you work remotely.
      - Imagine how stupid these questions would be when asked in Google interview. They only apply to small shady companies which you usually should avoid unless you are really desperate.
      - The company name is completely unknown and completely irrelevant. Why did the editors leave it in place? Why did they even publish this? Only reason I can think of is that they got paid.

      Shame on you Slashdot editors and shame on you little company.

      • You can figure out answers to those questions before going to the interview. Or if you can't, you really should avoid the company.

        I had the exact same thought around "product market fit", if you are thinking about going to work for a company you should know enough before you interview about "products" they offer and the market they are in to speak intelligently about it... maybe you could ask a question more like "how is the company evolving to the market changing" but if you asked the questions listed in a

      • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        "Yep, so I graduated 3 months ago, now tell me, does your company 'Netflix' have a product-market fit?"

        "Thanks for talking, we'll be in touch"

      • Other questions include "how much time is spent in meetings" and "what schedule is my boss or my our key collaborators on"?

  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:13PM (#62672844)

    - Who owns intellectual property to works I do outside my employment, outside the 9-5.
    - If the job is remote, do you have the right to recall workers to the office at any moment and at any whim?
    - Do you have core hours and are they actually respected by people booking meetings?
    - Will my job involve visits to any of client premises either in the same country and abroad?
    - Why did the previous person in my role leave?
    - When did you last promote anyone on the team I'd be joining, and why?
    - Would I be free to use any IDE of choice or do you enforce uniform toolkit across all devs? If the latter, what's the stack?
    - Who's the current pension scheme provider, do you enroll employees from day 1, and do you support pension payments via a salary sacrifice?
    - What online learning platforms would be made available to me if I joined?

    • by dvice ( 6309704 )

      Can someone replace the story text with this comment? It is actually useful unlike the story text.

      • Thanks

    • Pension? What century are you living in? I would trust a corporate pension slightly more than a pinky promise. Those pension obligations can be dumped with a quick-turnaround corporate bankruptcy declaration. Ive lived long enough to see it happen multiple times. A company-sponsored pension is the WORST form of retirement plan. It can go “poof” in an instant.

      Unless you’re confusing defined-benefit with defined-contribution
      • A civilised country, apparently. Yes, I meant a defined-contribution scheme when a company pays a certain amount of money (alongside your own contributions) into your own pension pot every month. In the UK, your employer usually has a deal with one of many approved pension providers and they enroll all employees upon joining. However, the money in the pot is yours to take when you leave.

        • Ah - different terms mean different things in different places. Thanks for the clarification. FYI in the US, the term “pension” means a defined-benefit plan. Different terms are used for defined contribution plans (501K 503B) which most companies have moved to in the past decades.

          which is a good thing. It’s my strong opinion that corporate defined-benefit pensions should be outright illegal. I’ve seen too many of them collapse. Heck, some of our states are even struggling with me
    • - Who owns intellectual property to works I do outside my employment, outside the 9-5.

      Even if the contract says they do, check with your state. Some states override that. Also, make sure it's not their equipment or ideas. It's touchy if your stuff touches theirs in any way.

      - Why did the previous person in my role leave?

      They won't tell you. Too many legal issues. Most times, they won't tell another employer that calls them.

      - When did you last promote anyone on the team I'd be joining, and why?

      Same

      • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        They won't tell you. Too many legal issues. Most times, they won't tell another employer that calls them.

        Depends, they might say the previous person retired or was promoted, decided to become a monk, maybe the team is just growing. It's not a bad question even if the answer is "we can't answer that for legal reasons"

      • >Even if the contract says they do, check with your state.

        Might not be worth it, at least for changing your mind. If they try to claim your independent work, especially in direct violation of state law, that's a huge red flag that they're likely to be far more trouble than they're worth. They don't need a legal leg to stand on to drag you through a tedious and expensive court battle - and with the wrong judge they might even win. Even in a country with a loser-pays legal system the time and headaches a

      • Why did the previous person in my role leave?

        They won't tell you. Too many legal issues. Most times, they won't tell another employer that calls them.

        - When did you last promote anyone on the team I'd be joining, and why?

        Same as above and frankly I'd not tell you anyway. You're not them and their work history is not your domain.

        I agree with you on why they can't answer why the previous person left.

        For the next question, I really like it but I'd leave out the "why" since then you are treading into private information.

        That said, if you are better off

    • Those are very good, Might I add a few?

      * What source control technology or service do you use?
      * Can you VPN from your personal computer, or must you use a locked down corporate system?
      * Can you publish free software, or publish patches, from your company account?
      * How many alert texts might I expect in a day?

  • by spth ( 5126797 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:20PM (#62672862)

    Those questions (and the others in the linked article might not matter that much.

    That engineer is looking for a job, probably a reasonably-paid one, with interesting tasks in an area that the engineer likes.

    That engineer wants a few years of paid, interesting work. How the company will do in the long term might be secondary to them. If the company fails, the engineer can get another job elsewhere.

    • "That engineer wants a few years of paid, interesting work. "

      The engineer wants to not look for another job again, because that's an entirely different kind of work. How well the company's products fit the market is correlated to how long it will be before the engineer has to look for another job.

  • by splutty ( 43475 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:25PM (#62672882)

    This article makes me very sure of one thing: I would never work at that company as an engineer, because why the fuck should I, as an engineer, care at all about marketing and salesmanager bullshit?

    If you do an interview for an accountant position do you ask whether the network has cat5 or cat6 cables?

    If the company dies while you work there, in any normal country (less so in the US I guess), you'll be perfectly fine until you find a new job. Companies are screaming for engineers right now..

  • it's kind of fucking stupid to talk about whether it's got product-market fit.

    • Oh, sorry. After reading TFA it's entirely clear that this startup owner doesn't give a shit about companies that aren't startups. Fuck him and the horse he rode in on. And fuck you too Slashdot.

  • Worst exercise video and home gym ever.

  • If you are worried about this sort of thing, you should have done your research before you walked in the door.
  • by ebcdic ( 39948 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:45PM (#62672952)
    ... was Slashdot paid to post this?
    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      there is an "Advertising" link at the bottom of this page, that's because this is advertising space you are watching/reading. from and advertising company.

      somehow it still amazes me when people take these posts seriously. the only sensible information in this one is the fact that they don't hesitate to offer "display" to even the most moronic, clueless and cheap charlatans in the industry, probably at a discount. looking at the trend i'm sure whatever utter crazy crap you might want to "display" to the worl

  • by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Monday July 04, 2022 @03:54PM (#62672964)

    Where was the "product-market fit" when:
    Mo invented the wheel and his brother invented fire.
    Edison invented the light bulb.
    Kellogg invented breakfast cereal.
    Jobs created Apple and the iPhone.
    etc.
    There was no market for these! If you have a product that fits a 'market', you probably have a commodity. You are doomed to compete with others in an existing industry and have little hope of a profitable monopoly. Consider developing a product that does NOT have a market yet, where you can be the first.

    • by beernutz ( 16190 )
      I am not sure that is really accurate. For example, there were a LOT of mobile phones before the iPhone. The iPhone just did it better. The market already existed. There was the sun and there were lanterns before the light bulb. Most of these inventions made things better, but did not create a market.
    • There was a good product market fit when Edison "invented" the lightbulb because Joseph Swan had already sold a bunch for the first electrically lit street in the world.

      As for the iPhone, there was already a very strong market for phones. The first smart phone might have been a flop selling 50,000 units in 1994, but it was the first of many. Though I think a phone needs third party apps to qualify as a smartphone...

    • There was a _tremendous_ market for each of those, one not yet filled by available tools.

    • fortunately for Edison when he invented the light bulb other people had already invented it so he knew the market quite well already. When Jobs created the iphone smartphones had been on the market for years already and were good money makers.
  • At least for engineers, it's good enough to focus on what it's going to be like to work for the company. Infrastructure engineers might not even need to like the product and they still could have a good time working there, work with great people, and get a lot out of it.

    A company doing well financially is a plus, sure, but it might not matter if you're gonna stick around for 3-4 years and then head somewhere else (like a lot of people do).

  • by Halo1 ( 136547 ) on Monday July 04, 2022 @04:00PM (#62672976)

    Since Slashdot started, its editors have posted hundreds of thousands of stories. What's one thing I've taken from this? It's normal for posters not to ask harder questions about the site, so they usually miss out on a chance to (i) de-risk their crypto gambles and (ii) to increase the chances they'll like posting here.

      Does the website have duplicate detection? This is the single most important thing a site can do to survive and grow.
      "Do you ever question if you have duplicate detection?"
      "When did you reach duplicate detection? How did you know?"
      "What do you need to do to get duplicate detection?"
      "Do you ever question if you have duplicate detection?"
      "What's your duplicate rate? What was it a year ago?"
      "How many daily duplicate posts do you have?"

  • that's a product owner and business analyst question, not an engineer question.
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      These are questions that you need answered if you don't want to join a sinking ship. Certainly they are not your responsibility once you join the organization. But wouldn't you like some idea as to whether the organization will exist in a few months/years? Or even if they do, will there be big cut backs that will put the new hires (you, for instance) jobs at risk?

      And don't you want some idea as to whether you are gong to work for a bunch of PHBs?

      • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        I work for a global company that provides multi million $$$ physical solutions to clients all over the world. The company has been around for at least 20 years, and was spun off from a parent company that had been around for 120 years before that (and is still around). Suffice to say that they have weathered various market ups and downs during that time.

        So these “important” questions are totally irrelevant to interviewing at a company like that, and to suggest that they are things every engine

  • The questions the engineer has to ask are "what's your plan on certifications and qualification?" and "Why is that job position available?"

    Why the hell should I care about problems of their management staff? I mean, I know that 99% of managers are useless, but I sure as hell don't already ask at the job interview whether I gotta do their job.

  • Oh wait. No they do not.
    1. 1) Is there any intention to sell the company?
    2. 2) Is current management stable and expected to last?
    3. 3) Do you plan to move your office/lab any time soon?
    4. 4) Are you an "agile" shop?
    5. 5) Do you use node.js?

    You should be able to tell if a company has what these people call "product-market fit" well before you even apply for a position. This is just new buzzword creation for basic business sense. "Product-market fit" is not a thing.

    I would never work for these people

  • Maybe they should use a product shoehorn to ensure product fit?
    Seems to work for most of the tech companies out there.
    Oh, a product shoehorn means getting managers drunk and then taking them to strip clubs/hookers.
  • WHAT THE ROYAL FUCK. what moron came up with that list, most of those questions I expect a candidate to know the answer for as they have adequately researched our company and products BEFORE they turn up for an interview. These are questions that would immediately make me think the person isn't appropriate.
    • That's because you're doing it wrong.

      I won't hire anyone who doesn't say product market-fit at least forty seven times in an hour long discussion.

    • "most of those questions I expect a candidate to know the answer for as they have adequately researched our company and products BEFORE they turn up for an interview. "

      They are also questions the candidate would expect the employee to know, and if the employee doesn't hat says something about the company.

  • Job-seeking is like dating: both having no experience at it and having a lot of experience at it is evidence that you aren't good at it.

    Most people look for jobs because they want a job and stop when they get one, as opposed to looking for a job to get good at looking for a job. It's hard to distinguish optimized strategies from something some guy made up on the spot.

    • Oh. That depends a great deal on the field. Some of us do contracting work, highly skilled roles that fill in a specific niche and train our replacements as a matter of the billable service. I try to leave as much of that as possible in the hands of my much appreciated sales and contract staff, but there are many situations where I've needed to meet the client up front and establish my expertise. There have been times when they did not _believe_ my knowledge, or my colleagues' expertise in advance, and we h

  • * What do you like about working for $Company?

    * What challenges has this department had to deal with?

    * What are some of the negatives of $Company and department?

  • Everybody has different goals for their employment. Some want good work-life balance. Some want travel and interaction with others in the Industry. Some want to work with other smart people, others want to just put in their time and go home.

    It's not enough to just get the answers to questions like work-life balance. Probing further to ask "why" the company does what it does, is more important than just the policies. For example, "We don't do overtime because we have a union contract" is very different from "We don't do overtime because we believe in building software at a sustainable pace." Or, "We work remotely but are looking for the right time to come back to the office" is different from "We work remotely because we have found that our people are happier and more effective in their jobs working remotely."

  • Are you selling products? Are you making a profit? Are your customers happy? Can you explain why?

    These are questions that can actually be answered. If a candidate asks me if my company "has product-market fit" I'm going to laugh them out the (virtual) door. That candidate deserves whatever company does hire them.

  • Perhaps if you’re going to work at a product company there’s a modicum of value in asking a question like that, but many of us appreciate the variety that comes from being a consultant who gets to work across a bevy of clients and products. Product-market fit is our client’s problem. They’re the ones putting their eggs in their product’s basket. Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of work for competent devs at consulting companies that actually want to do right by their client

  • 0/10. Not recommended. Run like hell.

  • 1) What is the hot need to that you want addressed by this role?
    2) In practice, what would you expect that I would actually be doing in this role?
    3) What sort of project will I be working on?

    These are much simpler questions and they don't generally get answered. You would think that #3 would be trivial and startups that only have one project will answer but others will more often deflect.

    Engineers and engineering managers are not going to know what product-market fit is. If you explain it to them, they still won't know the answer. So, why ask the question?

    It is painfully difficult to get useful information from an interviewer. Either they don't know or they don't think they can tell you. The best you can do is gather peripheral information and deduce what the information must be.

  • Because if he hates the job, I probably will.
  • I only care about "product-market" (if that phrase even means what I think it means) if the majority of my expected compensation is gong to be based on how successful the company will be. For me, and many people that may not be a gamble we want to take, and prefer reliable compensation with a modes upside if the company does well.

    But if I did care, how can I possibly trust their answers about "product-market fit" - what are they going to say "good thing you asked, but our product has no chance of succ
  • Does your company use shady products like PostHog that hides advertisement as legitimate content to fool people?
  • Usually when do you leave office at the end of the day? Is that common around here?

    That is the most important question you should ask in an interview, and if the interviewer tries to sidestep it you should cross this company off.

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