Recruiting Software Developers – Checking Out a Company

When I was a senior in high school, I went to go visit a bunch of colleges. They had programs where applicants could spend a day with current students—or maybe only after you were admitted, I don’t remember. Anyway, I had all different impressions and thought the visits could really inform my choice, but after spending a few years in the one ultimately picked, and hosted a few high school students myself, I don’t think I learned anything truly meaningful on those visits at all.

From a network engineering perspective, there's a few other ways to check out a company. Kind of different from what a software developer would be looking at. Start with its ASN. Find the peeringdb page. Use the route-views tool to see how much IP space it's announcing.

What IXes is it at? Its IX presence and where the core of its network originated will tell you a lot about where its network is strongest. What kind of services does it focus on? Residential? Commercial? Carrier?

Does it have other ASes that are owned by the same company and are downstream subsidiaries? How many other smaller ISPs look like they're buying transit from it, or is its AS a stub?

Have you met any of the ISP's people at a previous NANOG conference? Do they sound like they know what they're doing? Are they building something interesting and modern?

Worth noting that Glassdoor is less usefull for large companies as it's essentially pay to win. It's really useful for mid-size companies though and will generally get you a good idea of what systemic problems exist within the company.

These are good suggestions but one of the better ways I think is to get on a call with the person that will be your manager or whoever you'll be reporting to. It cuts through a lot of cruft that you'd have to infer from the job ad and the company's online persona.