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Comment by cryptozeus | Hacker News Reader

IMO Some of the questions here are opinion based , you may not get right answer and you may set a red flag for yourself. For example if someone asks me what are working hours, do you work on weekends ? I take that as a sign that interviewee may be looking for easy job role and not committed.

I would suggest to ask process related questions i.e what is the build/deployment process? What happens when you take down site in production due to bug? Etc.

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You really should not be using basic questions concerning things like work life balance as a hiring heuristic for candidates. If nothing else, from a purely pragmatic standpoint you do not receive any new information from a question about work life balance other than, "This candidate has a question about work life balance."

Your interpretation of that question is going to be noisy, subjective, unreliable and intrinsically incomplete. That makes it an exceptionally poor hiring signal. The idea that you can divine interesting insights about a candidate's employability or character based on mundane interview questions is fundamentally flawed.

Couldn't disagree more. The fact that the company doesn't like those questions would be a massive red flag to me that they indeed expect me to work weekends.

Times are great to be a software engineer. Don't squander that opportunity working for a place that won't respect you especially when there are so many wonderful places to work at where you will be respected.

I asked a few questions (working from home due to a long commute) like this during an interview and had my potential manager react like you. This was a great way for me to know I will never work there, until that culture element is changed.

A candidate is also testing you, and if you do not respect a candidate's concerns you're making it clear you're not committed to ensuring the potential employee gets the most out of the role.

For many, weekend work is a deal breaker. There should be full transparency about the frequency of weekend work or work hours above 40. It should be in the job ad.

If asking working hours means being flagged as not committed, I would seriously question the quality of the interviewee and subsequently the company.

Thanks, Good replies ! Should remind myself to also think from other point of view.

WTF. That might be in your country but in Europe this is pretty normal question. If you are going to be hired you have the right to know these.

You seem like an exploiter.

Completely disagree. If asking about work/life balance this is a red flag for the company then I definitely do not want to work for them.

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