Looking for a job as C++ developer? Waiting for another job interview? Tired of “what does encapsulation mean?” questions and being judged after half hour interview? Then try to judge your potential employer.
Of course first part of job interview is always pretty much the same and there are many howtos about handshaking, eye contact and such stuff. Then you have more or less known questions and here is first interesting part.
Beginning is usually simple – where did you work before plus some basic C++ questions. This definitely shouldn’t be the last part. If programming language basis is enough to get the job, and it wasn’t interview for greenhorn, newbie or trainee then you should run away. Really.
“Our system architect knows even how to overload operators in C++”. Dude, run faster!
Even if there was “young but very experienced team” statement in job announcement. Such experience might be painful to share.
Definitely there should be more questions about design patterns, code architecture, uml and tools. If you get this job you’ll probably work with interviewers or people with similar knowledge. If they are better then you – you’ll be able to learn something new.
If everything went well interviewer lets you to ask questions. Think before the interview what could you ask about. All questions about holidays planning, salary, bonuses, social things are important. However don’t forget about technical things.
My favourite is “Do you use stl?”. If the answer is “no” then listen to explanation very carefully. If they work on something with operating system then there is probably no explanation. If you’re told that stl is not efficient, that they developed better and faster library on their own then thank them for their time and flee. Yes, there still are people who reinvent the wheel and poorly rewrite the stl library. We don’t call them morons only because we are well mannered.
More good questions – “Do you use boost?”, “Do you support open source?”, “Do you use any open source libraries in your projects?”. If they don’t want to use free third parties and want to rewrite whole universe their own “better” way then you know what to do.
Of course until you have family to support :-)).
