[p4wnc6]

How much time do you typically allocate for this? I generally feel frustrated when an interviewer hammers me with difficult questions for 55 minutes and then leaves me with less than 5 minutes to ask questions. I don't think I have even one single question that matters to me which an employer could answer in less than 5 minutes of discussion. For example, my top question would probably be "how is my performance evaluated / does your company have direct or indirect stack-ranking, etc.?" That's a critical question, but not one that can be easily answered in 5 minutes. And that's only one out of about 10 or so such questions for which I would require detailed answers before considering taking a job.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

In an hour interview I'll do about 30 minutes of asking them questions, then give them a little 5 minute spiel about either the company in general or my team in particular, depending on what position I'm interviewing them for and who they've talked to already, and after that I'll take questions. I certainly do not have an upper threshold for this, and if they ask so many questions we can't get to the coding part of the interview, then we can't get to the coding part.

[pklausler]

Spend the limited time of a technical interview on technological matters.

[p4wnc6]

No, it's too critical to make sure you're not wasting time with open-plan office nonsense, stack ranking nonsense, or many other other kinds of systematic dysfunction that are frequent in tech jobs.

If you only focus on tech details, you waste your own time and the interviewer's time.

[pklausler]

There are other people who are better targets for your non-technical questions than the senior engineers with whom you have a brief opportunity to talk. Use that time wisely.

[p4wnc6]

The HR staff will say misleading things and present a rosier picture than the technical staff. The technical staff are the ones who know what the sociological issues are really like, and the degree of happiness you experience in the job is likely a lot more related to how the other technical staff answer the questions than non-technical staff.

Saving all this stuff for HR is a huge mistake. You won't get any useful info.