I was wondering if anyone else had any questions they always asked the interviewer in the “we’ll give you five minutes at the end to ask us questions” bit in interviews.
Personally I always ask what the staff turnover rate is. Mainly because in my first dev job I was one of four people who started on the same day. One of the other guys left after two days, I left after six weeks, and another guy left after two months.
Another I’ll be asking after my current job is if they have a mainframe. I’ve now worked at three companies with mainframes and they all were old corporations where they were outsourcing loads of stuff to unhelpful companies (often IBM) which generally meant lots of headaches.
I like to open with “I know crunch happens. It’s part of our industry. How often would you say crunch happens here and when it does happen, how long does it last?”
At bad companies, they’ll justify how crunch is unavoidable but don’t worry, their stock is gonna make you Rich™. At good companies, they’ll crunch a couple times a year, for a week, maybe two. At the best companies, they’ll talk about how their Process eliminates crunch time.
I’ve asked this question ever since I interviewed at a place where the lead dev had a cot in his office.