35 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
35 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: 'More "What Companies Really Mean"'
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description: 'when they ask "Why should we hire you?"'
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category:
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tags: []
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---
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I recently stumbled across a phenomenal small article entitled
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[What Startups Really Mean By "Why Should We Hire You?"](https://angel.co/blog/what-startups-really-mean-by-why-should-we-hire-you).
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Having been interviewed by smaller companies (though not exactly startups), the questions and
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subtexts are the same. There's often a question behind the question that you're actually trying to
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answer, and I wish I spotted the nuance earlier in my career.
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Let me also make note of one more question/euphemism I've come across:
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# How do you feel about Production Support?
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**Translation**: _We're a fairly small team, and when things break on an evening/weekend/Christmas
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Day, can we call on you to be there?_
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I've met decidedly few people in my life who truly enjoy the "ops" side of "devops". They're
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incredibly good at taking an impossible problem, pre-existing knowledge of arcane arts, and turning
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that into a functioning system at the end. And if they all left for lunch, we probably wouldn't make
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it out the door before the zombie apocalypse.
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Larger organizations (in my experience, 500+ person organizations) have the luxury of hiring people
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who either enjoy that, or play along nicely enough that our systems keep working.
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Small teams have no such luck. If you're interviewing at a small company, especially as a "data
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scientist" or other somesuch position, be aware that systems can and do spontaneously combust at the
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most inopportune moments.
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**Terrible-but-popular answers include**: _It's a part of the job, and I'm happy to contribute._
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