I've been thinking about this question for many years now and I have not been able to come up with a good, concise answer about the critical things you need to know before joining a new team. There are so many questions you could ask that it's almost overwhelming.

If I could only get a good answer to one high level question however it would be this:

"Does the company support strong, friendly collaboration inside teams and across teams?"

If a company prizes people working together to solve problems in a friendly, collaborative manner then I think it's much more likely to be an enjoyable place to work and learn. If a company doesn't appear to have this kind of culture then it's an immediate red flag.

Some examples of NOT having this kind of culture: - Rigid silos (at the team level or across teams) - Sink or swim culture - Knowledge hoarding / knowledge brokering - Backstabbing

Ya that is a really good one! I've been trying to figure out how to get a real answer on a question like that :), like is there something I can ask that shows that without asking it like that.

I.e. how do you store knowledge in the x team? Or, how often would I get to work with someone in x team?

I think it's actually reasonable to literally say "Tell me about how people collaborate here at XYZ and on this team."

If people start highlighting all the ways in which they work together, how they help each other, how they do pair programming or how they support each other then that's a great sign. If they stammer and they give a lame answer then it could mean the culture doesn't really value collaboration.

A lot of this is instinct. We may have very little experience interviewing, but we have decades of experience with humans. Nearly all the terrible moves I made was ignoring a base instinct for some positive signs.

1. Incompetent boss - drove a car he couldn't afford, was completely out of touch with his business. Excited for new technology that he didn't understand. Ended up bouncing across multiple ideas, never focusing enough to make one work, even though there was a waiting client.

2. Dishonest partner. Knew he was dishonest, took him anyway. Ended up burning all our other partners and flaking out of agreements.

3. Narcissistic client. Talked about how his staff were donkeys, to be motivated by carrots and sticks. Contact person was flaky on price, because they knew the boss would negotiate hard and move goalposts.

4. Impossible project. Project had years long history of attempts. Client brags about how marketing is the only thing that matters and that he comes from tech background. Turns out that the client overpromised to investors, can't gauge difficulty properly, and makes unreasonable requests.

5. Asshole client. Refused to pay for drinks. Spent the hour first meeting criticizing competitors. Later ghosted after I spent 2 weeks on a prototype.

6. Incompetent company. Boss had serious personal space issues. Was unable to explain his product. 6 years of bootstrapping to little success. Turned out that they had extremely serious issues that bled them major clients, and only won clients through blatant lies.

its very difficult to get an honest read from interviewers and hiring manager. the less functional they are the more desperate they are to turn things around.

its clearly not a hard and fast rule, but one thing that I've found is the things people and companies stress are often the things that they aspire to be, and are directly in contradiction with the way things actually are.

a company that stresses how well the deal with 'technical debt', is often one thats drowning in legacy code.

'productive collaboration' might mean a systemic culture of mistrust and people going their own way for no reason.

a company that says they are hiring you to present game-changing ideas for consideration is likely to put you in a corner and ignore you.

but I have alot of baggage :)

:), so the more they try to define themselves as x that usually means they are defining themselves by their biggest challenge.

I kinda like that :). Now I have to go think about what that means for me personally!

I wish I'd read up about the stability of the company I'm joining and if they're financially sound or not. Companies that aren't doing well financially usually have problems with management (for example, projects don't get enough funding).

Another thing I missed is if the people on your team sound bored or don't seem interested or excited about their work. One way I found telling was if they didn't go into details about their projects and try to be ambiguous.

Most large corporations are more run by personal dominance and fear than by use of profitable skills. Once you reach a certain size, the economy caters to you rather than the other way around. Reality is determined by the will of the powerful, rather than what is observable.

Profitable skills in and of themselves can be dangerous in a large corporation, as skillful people can change things outside the will of the politically powerful.

I wish I had fully understood their business model, not what their business could be, but how it really makes money. Who drives that money being made, and what would be my working relationship with them? It's not always transparent how this works, all useful politics within a company revolve around the working group that is bringing in the money. Your experience and future at a company from a monetary and career perspective is directly linked to this, everything else is secondary.

If you had understood the business model and how it really makes money, would that have changed your mind on joining? Or more give you more info to succeed once you were an employee?

Got any examples?

If you are an engineer and the company primarily makes money through cold calls by salespeople, then the salespeople are a revenue generating center and you are a cost center. A company increases profits by increasing revenue and reducing costs, so you can figure out which group will be prioritized when it comes to promotions and bonuses.

ah right, great point!

That everyone there above the bottom-tier staff were jerks. (Not referring to my current or any recent job.)

I've turned this over in my head for more than a decade now and have concluded there was no question I could have asked, or other way I could have known before accepting the position. Likewise, I've concluded that there's no reliable way to what a new hire will be like to work with until you've worked with them for several months.

Sometimes you just gotta change jobs. Small companies can be great places because sometimes the leadership directly sees the problems of turnover and wants individuals to succeed.

In large companies if you don't like where you are there are generally more options to move around.

Medium-sized companies can be the worst of both worlds. (I'm sure some are the best though.)

If there were any offhand remarks made during the interview/recruiting process that are influencing your friend's decision then it's worth asking more detail about that, preferably in email.

Instead of asking "what hours will I be working?" swap that with "how many hours does $COWORKER put in each week?".

Or even just: "Am I expected to be available 24/7 if something goes wrong?"

A workplace culture of being available 24/7 is awful (regardless of the salary) in my opinion.

That they were about to relocate their office.