Ask HN: Judging the technical skills of prospective teams

4 points by nobodynowhere 9 years ago | 3 comments

I’ve been working in the industry a few years and I’ve ended up on teams of varying levels of technical skill. I’m interviewing again and I’d really like to get a sense of my prospective teams’ technical chops before agreeing to join. I’ve been considering: 1) Asking short technical questions of my interviewers at the end of the interview when they ask if I have questions. 2) Asking for the resumes of the prospective team’s members.

If someone you were interviewing to join your team did either/both of these, what would your reaction be? Alternatively, how do you judge the technical skills of teams you interview with?

dman 9 years ago |

I usually ask what big challenges will they be tackling in the next 4-5 months. Then try to use that as an entry point into discussing technical details at a slightly deeper level. In many cases it works well. In some cases it does not since people say that the roadmap is sensitive.

petervandijck 9 years ago |

Instead of resumes, ask for the names of the senior tech people you'll be working with. Then look them up online (LinkedIn, ...).

Second, ask what they're working on/what you would be working on.

taprun 9 years ago |

Ask about some of the technical challenges that bit them unexpectedly. It's usually a good way to get them to open up.