I would highly recommend that candidates do research on the company. If you do, and you are truly interested what the company is making, specific questions will come up. Be prepared to ask followups and drill in. In my experience, this can have a larger impact than the candidates answers (it's well known that people like to talk more than they like to listen :) This is a way for a candidate demonstrate your intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm.
I've seriously been asked by a candidate in an interview what our product was, and not just once. You took a day off work to come here and you couldn't even look at our website? On the other hand, I've had candidates who proactively identified some of the internal challenges we were currently dealing with "but how do you deal with X?" which is impressive.
More importantly, this decision to work at a company is going to have a bigger impact on the candidate than the hiring manager. People forget that the interview is a two way process. It's important to find out whether this company is going to be a place you will enjoy. Use questions as a way to figure out what the environment is like. Look for subtext in the answers.
Somewhat off-topic, but not too much: Are you the Jeff Bush that worked at Be for awhile? If so, you were in on my interview there. (For the sake of other readers, I got the job. But then Be went out of business seven months later and I got laid off, along with almost everybody else.)
This conversation is reminding me of why I washed out of the Bay Area high-tech scene. I was able to do it, but at too high a price. I'd rather work with slightly less smart people on much less shiny products, but living in a place where I can afford to buy a house, and with enough brainpower left over so that I don't have to live for my job.
You know, I really botched that opportunity at Be. I was really in awe of you guys. I had been on the outskirts of the tech biz for my whole career at that point. I didn't know that there were that many amazingly smart people in the whole world, let alone in one company.
It didn't help any that Be's heart was already broken by the time I got there. I don't think anybody really believed that the eVilla was going to be a success. But I could have overcome that problem, if I'd been smart.
Ultimately, I'm just not cut out to work in the rarified air that you work in. I can certainly see the appeal, though.
I think you're being tough on yourself. A lot of life is timing, and unfortunately, in retrospect, you came in at a bad time. The eVilla was a challenging project, hampered by a lot of decisions that were out of our control (it was a shitty hardware design due to ruthless cost cutting). At the time, I believed there was a kernel of a good idea, but it just didn't come together. I feel bad that overall the experience seems to have been negative for you.
Many of the people who worked on that project ended up back together as part of the team that built Android: Dianne Hackborn, Jean Baptiste Queru, and many more (BeIA actually had a early version of Binder in it). Not immediately though: people who weathered the layoffs ended up being acquired by Palm. Mired in politics, I don't think the OS they built there ever shipped on any hardware, but, as I understand, many of the ideas from that project ended up in Android. The other big contingent of Be-ites, which I followed, went to Danger, which Andy Rubin had co-founded. After that flamed out, many people from there ended up at Android as well. I'm pleased to see Android's success, especially given the string of failures that many of the team members experienced over the prior 8+ years. Many people may not realize that.
To your other point: I periodically go running at lunch with a group that I work with. They are much more serious than I am and have been doing it longer. I'm not at all a great runner and fall behind pretty quickly. I don't aspire to be, and have no expectations I ever will. But I like to run with them because it motivates me to work harder and it's more fun with go with other people than by myself, even if it points out my shortcomings. Most people who seem smart just have spent a lot of time doing something. Personally, I think it's important not to be intimidated by people who you think are better at you than something. You're also probably better than you think. In those days I think was the type of interviewer everybody here is complaining about, so you probably did alright. :)
Yes, I am very aware of the post-Be trajectories of all you guys. I've been following you all since then. Almost nobody remembers Be anymore, but I still get mileage in job interviews out of having former coworkers on the Android team. (heh.)
I would say that my time at Be was a failure, but that it was also entirely my fault. I was often so intimidated by you guys that I was afraid to speak up. I would have gotten over it eventually, but not in that environment, what with our impending doom and periodic layoffs hanging over our heads. I didn't enjoy working on the eVilla, and I don't think I was alone in that respect. But I could have put my head down and performed a workmanlike job anyway, while cultivating contacts amongst all you guys who were dribbling out to bigger and better things. But I let my intimidation get in the way and made myself a liability.
I am well aware I could get back into the big leagues if I wanted to. I am a much better programmer now than I was then. I clawed my way in the first time, I could do it again. But I really don't think the Bay Area is for me. I recently bought a house for 180k that would have likely cost a million bucks out there. I am happy with my piddly little jobs in the B leagues where I don't have to try all that hard.
Perhaps you just have more perspective now. I think back to previous jobs where I was so stressed out and the problems seemed so important. Looking back at the craters that are all that remains of those companies, they weren't as much as I thought they were. That's not to say it wasn't worth doing: there were some exciting times and I met some great people that I enjoyed working with. But I probably focused too much on the wrong things.
I agree. Having a few questions in mind is always a good idea, though I tend to prefer discussion starters rather than a simple, straightforward question. It gives you the opportunity of a follow-up, which let's you talk about a topic of _your_ choosing. My usual rule of thumb for end-of-interview discussions is that it should last until the interviewer suddenly realizes time's up. Then you know that they really enjoyed the conversation.
In general though, I'd avoid HR-related questions. They are almost always likely to generate a generic response, almost every candidate will ask similar questions, and they can easily be answered by your HR department contact.
If I were to start interviewing for a position now, I think the last thing on my mind would be trying to find out 'right' questions to ask. I'm either really interested in the position being offered or I'm not. If I am, I've already got tons of questions borne straight out of that interest. If not, I'm looking for the quickest exit I can make without burning any bridges. I don't want to waste time any more than Apple does.
The author got it right when he mentioned at the end that he was "talking to the people who implemented the original OSX UI". That's the sort of thing that would make me interested in working for you. Personally, I don't care about a company's 'interview process'. That's just filler crap they use to get people talking. I don't need help to get me talking about what I do. I'll answer questions, but as soon as I can, I'll be grilling you about all kinds of stuff. I'm in question-asking mode by default.
I like that, it's a good question. Nobody's actually asked me that, which is odd because one question I like to ask all candidates I interview is the inverse ("If you could change one thing about $our_product, etc"). You'd think somebody would have flipped it around on me!
It usually throws the interviewer off, sometimes they need to take a long time to answer, which can be good or bad, but its up to you to decide how honest they're really being
I always find it a little funny as a manager when a prospective individual contributor asks me what a typical day is like for me. For me? I sit in meetings all day, thanks for asking. Would you like to know what a typical day would be like for you? :)
Finding out you spend all day in meetings still tells you something, especially with a few follow-up questions. Who do you spend your time meeting with? What about? How many people are typically involved? How long do meetings last?
(That said, most of the people I've been interviewed by were devs, so this was not really ever an issue.)
Yeah, when I say I spend a lot of my day in meetings, I usually get a blank look, but it's an opportunity to riff and expand on what the environment is like at the company. For example, part of my job is to protect engineer's time. One reason I go to meetings to report status and collect relevant information to condense and pass on to the team.
I usually just ask the questions from the Joel Test. If they score high enough I get to other questions specific to their company.
Back to OP: I personally don't see myself working for a place that needs to talk to me for more than 1 hr before making a decision. If they take this long to decide on a hire, imagine how long and grueling are their technology decisions.
Some I liked:
What does a typical day look like for you?
What projects do you work on?
How long have you been at $company? How has your role changed since then?
If I were hired for this role, what would my first day/week/month look like?
Is there anything about $company that some people really like, but others might dislike? (For example, having an open-plan office.)
What tools do you use on a regular basis?