Re:Things I’ve learned in my 20 years as a software engineer
by bluGill on Friday October 08, 2021 @04:57PM
(#28804103)
You should ask about vacation and sick leave both, not generic PTO. The two can be very different, or the same thing.
I get vacation that I'm required to take every year. I have unlimited sick leave - but I actually have to be sick to use it (going to the dentist for a regular checkup counts as sick though)
I just ask the individual contributors how much PTO they've taken in the past 12 months. It's more or less an open question, doesn't necessarily means I'm interested in taking too much PTO. You'd be surprised of how honest people are. I had interviewees even start venting about burnout. Someone from an e-commerce company (not Amazon) told me he's gonna take a month off as he took 0 vacation days for the past 1.5 years (!!!). He admitted he's probably going to get in trouble but he doesn't care anymore.