A few interview questions to consider.
What’s the whole process for getting one line of code changed into production?
- I once had to remove a link from an admin dashboard. The process to do that was 52 steps.
Humility is an enabling principle that precedes learning and improvement. A manager must be willing to seek input, listen carefully, and continuously learn. They do not know it all and readily admits that. When you have done this? How often?
How do speed and quality relate?
- After they answer: Does frequency of feedback affect this, and if so, how?
What does the phrase “test in production” mean to you?
Who owns the board? Is it viewed as Products board?
Do you put ticket numbers on each commit?
Do you incentivize improvements? And how soon? What type of improvements do you value?
How do you recognize when you’re stuck in the “we’ve always done it this way” trap?
Are developers treated more like a line cook or a doctor?
In order to get better, you have to be intentional. If you’re not intentional, you’ll be average. What are you doing to be intentional?
I found myself fixing bugs constantly in the past few jobs I’ve been in. They didn’t have good practices, always rushing around, which led to bugs, and it was a constant firefight. What’s the situation like here?
How often are you changing our process to try to make yourself more effective?
- (there should be many recent examples).
What question did you wish you would have asked before you started working here?
If you’re the manager of a 7 person dev team, how many separate concurrent initiatives do you have? How did you reach that number?
If your team uses PR’s, how do you handle large refactorings? Do you have to create a story/ticket just for the refactoring? If it’s a large refactoring and other work is going on, do you plan on having a messy merge conflict when that time comes? How do you encourage small changes like typos, small refactorings, etc? Do you roll them into bigger PR’s and deal with the merge conflicts that others have later?
(If they bring up story points) How many dollars does a story point save or make?