Advice for interviewing a technical manager

[Benjano]

You're coming to England for the interview? Didn't think you could make it. Also, you're too overqualified :) We still need to be able wind our managers up by trying to convince them that our new project should be done using a language they've never heard of.

[Roger Allen]

I thought you could guarantee violence if someone stepped over the line?

If you vote me down, my score will only get lower

[Benjano]

Thanks for the response. It would be very useful to find out where they sit on the micro-management scale, in fact, it should be part of the CV submission process. I'd feel guilty forevermore if I failed to spot a micro-manager that eventually got hired by the company (and probably the wrath of the rest of the team for helping to hire said mirco-manager).

[wizardzz]

I thought a Skype interview would suffice. Overqualified? You mean the position is underpaying? Languages I've never heard of? I just respond that I'm familiar, but not comfortable enough to demonstrate.

"I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. " — Hunter S. Thompson

[Benjano]

Thanks for the response. The question regarding choosing technologies should hopefully give me an idea whether they know anything about technology or are completely hopeless. Good question.

[smcnulty2000]

"Technical knowledge" is a little broad, as terms go. The point isn't to have a pretty list of questions that they field or don't, it is to get them talking about technology. Ask them what their favorite webserver is and why, or what their favorite database is and why (especially if the job doesn't involve either of those directly). Ask them if they have a problem of a technical nature what sources they use to solve the problem. Grill them about what websites they think have good technical information. Ask them how they measured progress in the past for a technical project, and how effective it was. Ask them how they would solve a technical issue if the internet was unavailable. A conversation about technology that touches on esoteric points is probably better than a set of tough questions. Frankly, having just gone through a helluva lot of tech interviews I figured out several things: - if you go to enough of them you can pick up knowledge as you go and by the time you get to a fairly late one sound pretty darned sophisticated. - if you fail to do the technical thing in the interview that doesn't mean you can't do it. - if you can't communicate with the person asking the question well enough, you might be a bad candidate for the job even if you can do every part of it technically. - Tests don't. And you might consider asking them to show you some examples of things they've worked on, if possible. Maybe they can diagram some things they've worked on and give a good overview even if they can't show code.

_____________________________ Give a man a mug, he drinks for a day. Teach a man to mug...

[Tom Chantler]

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

I didn't expect the bloody Spanish Inquisition!
 
I'm a big MP fan. :)

I've never met a programmer who wasn't, outlaw or otherwise.

[SeattleC]

What are you talking about? Marianne, of course. Some people...

[SeattleC]

Well naturally you want a manager you can work with. Give him points if he is what you'd like your manager to be. Personally, I like kinda hands-off managers, people who lead without micromanaging, people who view their role as supporting a team, not leading a charge or setting policy. Questions? Hmmm. Your first week on the job, which is very hectic due to looming deadlines, you have to break up an almost-physical altercation between Bob, who likes his curly braces lined up underneath the if, and Jack, who likes the open-curly to the right of the if. They want you to solve the problem. What do you do? Your boss asks you to prepare a detailed schedule estimate for the next project. How do you go about that chore? Describe a time in your management experience when you had to dismiss a member of your team. What was the cause, and how did you handle the process. If you had a free hand, what development methodology would you introduce to a newly constituted team? You've been assigned a team of reasonably bright, professional devs, who are behind schedule on a project with major impact to the company. Division management really needs the thing done on schedule to make their goals. So far, the team have mostly been working regular hours, but even assuming 50 hour weeks it isn't clear you'll be done on time. Progress has been uneven, with some stuff nearly done and other stuff not yet even designed. The windows don't open so suicide isn't an option. What do you do? What *do* you do? Where do you look first for problems. How do you win in this no-win situation?

[wbaxter37]

When I think of some technical managers I've had the first questions I think of are "Do you know your a*****e from a hole in the ground?" "Do you know s**t from shinola?" "How did you ever manage to graduate from high school?" "How often do you change your TPS report formats?" When I think of the good ones I've had, different questions come to mind. Ask open-ended questions, especially inviting the interviewee to talk about him-or-herself and what they've actually done. This is how I've devised questions for everyone from an assembler up to a manager, actually. You can get a lot of good information out of people, their pesonality and abilities, when they tell stories. Concentrate the questions on things required by the job description and expected by you. How have you tracked project progress? What do you like to cover in staff meetings? How do you estimate the number of personnel and amount of work a project will take. Give an example of an accurate estimate and how you came up with it. What tools have you used for project management? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your favorite one? Give an example of how you lead a recovery from a major project delay or disruption. Give an example of an effective code review. What was the approach? How about an ineffective code review? What could have been done differently and what did you learn from it?

[Mike Winiberg]

Say no More!

[BrainiacV]

I've heard it's a good idea to have lunch with them to see how they treat the waitstaff. Partly to determining their character. My former Bitch Supervisor from Helltm was very nice and polite during the interview. We were peers at that point, she had no control over me. But once I was hired, ho boy!, did that ever change. Now she was my boss and besides being incompetent, insecure, and a control freak, she was a pathological liar. Fear was her greatest motivator and "Unacceptable!" was her favorite word. Management had wisely(?) promoted her to limit the damage she was doing to the code base, but recognized a sadistic streak in her at cracking the whip over those now below her. So unless that is the type of person you are looking for... It was when a group of us mavericks had privately complained about her to the new Vice-President of Technology. Next thing we knew, she promoted to be his personal assistant. There is more to the story, but I'm getting off into a rant instead of giving advice. P.S. be on the look out for a bag of buzzwords. That's what the VP of Tech turned out to be.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11

[BrainiacV]

Member 2941392 wrote:

The windows don't open so suicide isn't an option.

Thanks, that made my day.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11

[BrainiacV]

Member 2941392 wrote:

What *do* you do?

I've always heard that when the going gets tough, the tough take meetings. Involve upper management and tape a sign to the conference room door saying,

These meetings will continue until we determine why no work is getting done.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11

[Benjano]

This is a great idea, I always try and get this sort of thing organised so that as many people from the team can meet the person. Everyone is going to have to work with them on a daily basis, and going down to the pub for some lunch is a great opportunity to meet in a more friendly environment. One of my old bosses used to do this to crowdsource[^] a decision whether the candidate would fit in with the team. Unfortunately the current management misunderstood my request last time a new manager was hired, and invited everyone to meet them at the pub after they had already been hired, before any of us had even met them.

[BrainiacV]

Sorry to come back with a "that reminds of the time..." story, but your response provoked it. :-D Actually two stories, if I don't run off at the keyboard too much. One, was when management was having a series of team building activities. Essentially they were designed to show the team could come up with a better way of doing things than an individual (like YOU!) could come up with. We had already done the "If a bomb goes off and you and your collegues are trapped in the basement and all you have are...and what is the order you perform the following actions..." (actually that came out handy, we learned who not to listen to in an emergency), and had moved on to the "Let's all write a program in a language nobody knows..." exercise. Team members were randomly assigned and there was this person I had never met before in our group. Knowing all the people in my group, I had already, in my mind, elected myself to be the leader. Wishing to involve everyone in this activity, I went up to this young gentleman and introduced myself. I could barely get his name from him. For the most part, he just sat in corner and scowled at everything we did. Finally he exploded with a suggestion and to be nice, I included it in our design, even though it was not optimal. Later that day, he came to my cubicle and said, "Remember me? I'm your new boss." Turns out the reason for the scowl was that he was realizing what a dysfunctional company he had just signed up for. On the whole he wasn't a bad boss. He spent most of his time at the corporate headquarters about an hour's drive away. One day he caught us installing DOOM on our workstations so we could play over the network during lunch. We feared a reprimand, but instead he organized after hours gaming sessions. After spending a day at the corporate headquarters he would come back saying we were staying late to play DOOM. He felt the need to kill some_thing_, rather than some_one_. We all agreed it was good therapy. The other involves that Vice President I mentioned in the previous post. He had come down to our offices to introduce himself and talk about all the wondrous programs we were going to be writing using the new paradigm he was bringing to the company. This was just before lunch and one of the bolder members of my group approached him after his presentation and asked what he was doing for lunch. He said he had no plans and was asked to join us, which he did. So there we were, sneaking around the prairie dog field (what the punch time

[mbb01]

What is the most important part of the development process?