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Nathan DeWitt
Asked: 2009-05-07 12:33:42 +0800 CST

What do you ask every new employer?

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Most programmers know about the Joel test - 12 yes/no questions to quickly evaluate where a company stands in its development department. These questions are things like "do you use source control" and "do you have a spec".

What are the equivalent questions for sysadmins? What are the 10 or 12 yes/no questions that indicate the cluefulness of the employer?

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4 Answers

  1. Best Answer
    • Do you have a dedicated server room/colo?
    • Do you do backups?
    • Do you have a repeatable machine build?
    • Do you have a trouble ticket tracking system?
    • Do you have a firewall? How is its configuration tracked or backed up?
    • Am I expected to run cabling, or do you have a contractor/facilites mgr for that?
    • Who runs the phone system?
    • Where do you keep documentation on procedures?
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    • What is your pager/on call procedure? What does the current rotation look like?
    • What operating systems do you support for the desktop?
    • What is your work from home policy?
    • Do your system administrators also do network administration tasks?
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  3. What hours do you try to work, what hours do you normally work, what hours do you occasionally work. You can learn a lot from these answers.

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  4. The best advice is besides talking to the Employer, is to talk to the employees. While many companies are replacing them with automated phone systems, I used to be able to learn more about the company by talking to the receptionist then I did from the interview.

    Also don't forget to Google the company and the company officers. A friend of mine took a job then discovered that the owner and CEO where under inditment on several federal charges. He left as soon as possible.

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