Joshua T Kalis articles

New Hire Questions

What is the product?
What is the mission of the company/product?
What tools are developers using to do their jobs or collaborate?
Where do requirements come from?
- Are they involved in validating that they have been solved for?
How are tie-breakers decided when competing or conflicting requirements arise?
What is an example of a time a team failed to deliver; or, failed to deliver on time?
- How could a better outcome have been achieved?
How long have you been with the company?
- What is the average tenure of someone in this role?
How far out are plans made for feature development?
- How far out is your planning horizon?
What deployment environments do you have? DEV, TEST, BETA, PROD
How automated are deployments?
How often are deployments?
How often are team member reviews performed?
What opportunities exist for someone that would like to transition into leadership from an engineering position?
What is the leadership culture like?
- Continual development
- Leadership training
- Evaluations by peers or direct reports
Can projects be run locally on a developer's machine or do they require deployment to an environment?
What version control system do you use?
What is the process for releasing new features?
Would I be filling a new or existing position?
Who would be my mentor; who could I reach out to as a peer for advice in my role?
What would be some success metrics I would be evaluated against?
How big would the team be that I would be joining?
How many people would report to me?
What are the pain points in your process currently?
How long does a new feature take to get from "ideation" to production?
How is a team's success measured?
What is the cycle/lead time for the team?