Ask HN: Essential questions to ask a potential employer?

1. Joel's List: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

2. Culture

3. Stance on refactoring vs. feature delivery

4. Off Time - I'm personally against companies that demand overtime, unfortunately this trend is increasing and developers (especially juniors) don't stand up against it.

I recently had a CA based startup ask for 60 hours a week (probably because I am Indian). Had to politely refuse.

I wrote a blog post that covers the essential softer questions every applicant should ask their potential employer during an interview if it helps: http://hackerjobs.co.uk/blog/2012/5/16/assessing-a-company-q...

1. Will there be any kind of mentorship and professional development for you or do they just want individual code monkeys?

2. What's the culture like? Is pair programming encouraged? Are there lunch and learns? Is there a budget to buy books or go to conferences?