HACKER Q&A
📣 brnr_acc_01

What you wish you had known before joining a company as an engineer?


Hi everyone,

I hope you're all having a great week.

I've recently joined a new company, and unfortunately, many of the things discussed during the interviews turned out to be inaccurate. While the tech stack is mostly the same, their approach to code quality, deployments (often involving manual scripts run from developers' computers), PRs, and reviews is poor, with no interest in improvement or change (suggestions are never taken seriously, always scheduled for 'later discussion').

With this experience in mind, what are the key things you wish you had known before joining a company engineering-wise? If you had a close friend working there, what questions would you ask them to get an honest and accurate picture?

Thanks a have a nice weekend!

  👤 JohnFen Accepted Answer ✓
The main things I want to know (and what I ask when the "Do you have any questions for me?" question comes in an interview) is: what is the day-to-day process here? How do you do issue tracking, version control, code review, etc.? How are tasks assigned?

That sort of thing. Those are far from the only things that I want to know, but those are the things that I usually can't find out through independent research.

I do ask this in all interview rounds, but I only really pay close attention when I'm asking this of the working devs themselves.

👤 kstenerud
What percentage of your coworkers do you enjoy working with?

Do they like working there?

Is your manager a net boon or drain on the department?