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Based on “Organizational issues” — sore spots of IT? I think it would be fair to say that system administrators need to determine if a place is worth working at. There is a similar well known test by Joel for programmers.

What are the 12 questions system administrators should ask at an interview in order to help them decide if it's a good place to work at?

Following Joel's rules:

  1. Questions should be platform and technology agnostic
  2. Questions should elicit a simple response such as yes or no

EDIT: Please post one question at a time so we can see what users are voting for.

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Nick Kavadias
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    question - should we put each question in a separate answer so that we have a top 12 voted question/answers? – Brian May 29 '09 at 17:11
  • I think that's probably the best way to work it. – Nick Kavadias May 29 '09 at 17:22
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    The Joel Test uses yes/no questions, so maybe we should stick to those types instead of "how" or "describe" questions. – Doug Luxem May 30 '09 at 14:11
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    True. But the questions can also be phrased in such a way that "any other answer other than x" would also suffice. Each organization does things differently, and while Joel has been nice enough to provide a template, it doesn't mean that /everyone/ will follow the same /kind/ of template. – Avery Payne Jun 01 '09 at 17:04
  • Number 7 doesn't fit the question criteria. Additionally, the answer to number 7 would also be worthless without considerable prior knowledge of the job and its environment. – John Gardeniers Jul 01 '10 at 22:24
  • That seems obvious, now that you've pointed it out. :) – Kara Marfia Jul 01 '10 at 22:31
  • @Nick Kavadias - Nope. Restoring from backup is a whole different can of worms from rebuilding a server architecture after the building burns down. – Steven Evers Aug 10 '10 at 22:55
  • Why are you curating the top answers in your question post? Isn't that what the voting system is for? If I want to see the answers curated by popularity, that functionality is available directly below, automatically by the community... – joshperry Sep 27 '11 at 23:57
  • @joshperry, because there are multiple answers, but unlike other wikis, we want to see the *composite* answer. – Avery Payne Dec 02 '11 at 04:19
  • @AveryPayne yes, but the answers _are_ composited below the question, completely automatically by the system. SO was made specifically to be better than forums, manually curating all the answers in the OP is and creates a horrible anachronism; it's error-prone, and totally unnecessary. – joshperry Dec 03 '11 at 16:14

69 Answers69

101

Do you use an incident/ticket tracking system?

Oskar Duveborn
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    And a corollary: does it support email and conversations? The system we use here would answer "yes" to your question, but is close to a net loss. Inevitably a report comes in, and helpdesk doesn't ask the right questions. So someone else goes in and does undocumented secondary information gathering, fixes the problem and makes no effort to document any of this. At least with a ad-hoc email thread, you wind up with a quoted conversation history. – jldugger May 29 '09 at 18:35
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    This can be good or bad really. Some ticket systems end up impeding almost all other work with help desks constantly escalating just to get the ticket out of their realm. – sclarson May 29 '09 at 18:36
  • You need an incident system to gather statistics on where the actual problems lie and/or reoccur. This is a good base to fix broken systems and the reports from it helps management to see that it's a valid problem you have to deal with. – Oskar Duveborn May 29 '09 at 19:14
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    There is a difference between problems and incidents. One occurance is an incident. Once there is a pattern of incidents, it can become a problem. – geoffc May 31 '09 at 02:54
80

Do you perform system backups, and do test restores regularly?

Brian
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  • How many other people will be working along-side myself in day-to-day operations?

This affects your ability to perform in a very direct way. It also affects your ability to take an uninterrupted vacation...

  • Who is the first responder to problems?

This answer will vary, but it's a good indication of how the organization can actually "organize". Large setups should have a helpdesk and ticketing system; small setups should have at least the ticketing system, along with some kind of company-paid pager for help.

"Just you" is not an acceptable answer. This is a complete lack of organization, and should be followed up with a question of "How do you track requests from users?". This must be answered with something other than "you don't".

  • What is your ratio of existing systems to administrators?

This shouldn't be too high (above 50:1) or too low (below 5:1). Too high and your workload will be so severe you'll be treading water to stay afloat. Too low and you're either a one-person shop, or there are severe issues with the shop's ability to manage systems.

As always, there are exceptions to the rule; instances where 200+ systems can be imaged from a single source (think web head-ends), and instances where the business is very small (20 employees might only need 2 servers).

  • What is your ratio of end-users/customers to administrators?

This is a measure of expectation. These are your "customers". When there are issues, this will be the amount of "pressure" you will be under to resolve a situation. An organization of 5000 with just 2 admins can be a very, very stressful place if your systems are having trouble.

  • What is your ratio of end-users/customers to existing systems?

This is a measure of server workload. Very high ratios can be a sign of overutilization, or budgetary constraints that will tie your hands when it's time to expand. Underutilization can also be an issue when it's not called for (i.e. makes sense that HR has their own server, but a file server for only 5 "regular" users in an organization of 5,000 is a red flag); this might call for some "virtualization" to consolidate servers...

  • Is there an existing process for handling updates to existing systems, such as applying vendor patches or firmware updates?

This should be any other answer other than (a) "I don't know", or (b) "we don't update".

  • Say a server catches fire. In the event of a crisis or calamity, what timeframe is acceptable as downtime?

This should always be a reasonable question. If the interviewer gets bent out-of-shape at this question, then they don't understand the nature of your work, a vital clue about future prospects. If the expectation is 24/7 operation, that's fine - unless they don't have the infrastructure for it, which means you'll be babysitting machines a lot. Knowing what is and isn't acceptable helps to tip their cards to you about their true expectations.

  • Speaking of fire, do you have a fire suppression system in place for your equipment, and is it of the appropriate type?

Water sprinklers are not an acceptable answer. This does happen, and you will get organizations that think stuffing a rack into a broom closet with no ventilation and a fire sprinkler overhead is a great idea. If this is downplayed, ignored, or met with hostility, get up, thank the interviewer, and don't walk, run...

  • Describe your data backup process and the format of storage used.

This is another question that should be answered with anything other than "we don't" and "we don't have backup media".

  • Do you test your backups on a regular basis, and how often?

The follow-up to the above question. If you're not testing on a regular basis, you're just inviting trouble.

  • Is there a known budget and purchasing process for both capital outlays and minor purchases? Can you explain to me the process I would use to purchase something?

If the answer is "we (someone else) will buy it as we need it", that's a red flag. It means "we don't trust you to buy equipment when you really need it, so we'll have someone else do it instead". There should always be some kind of budget.

The process to purchase something should be easy enough to explain in less than 2 minutes. It should not involve more than 2 parties signing off (higher numbers indicate red tape), and it should have a turn-around measured in days or hours, not weeks (critical purchases will be held up if it's too long). There should always be some kind of process.

  • Do you have a plan to refresh and recycle old hardware, and how often does it occur?

I have actually seen companies running on 18-year-old minicomputers that are kept alive by support contracts and lots of spare parts from a support vendor. Of course, the original hardware vendor has long since departed...

Desktop units should never be refreshed faster than 3 years, or slower than 5. In businesses with tight budgets, stretching a desktop to 5 years is sometimes an appropriate answer.

The bit on recycling is a test to see if they have a "disposable" attitude towards old hardware. It's bad in the sense that you should properly dispose of it through a known recycler, but good in a sense that you can press-gang old hardware into temprorary duty should the need arise. It will also give you a sense of the size of their "boneyard" (the pile of old hardware that is kept around).

Related Questions:

https://serverfault.com/questions/44638/how-often-does-tech-refresh-happen

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Avery Payne
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    Nice comprehensive response. The "refresh and recycle" is one that would be fun to ask of servers also; you don't want to be going into a shop where you're spending most of your time nursing ancient servers, do you? – Maximus Minimus May 31 '09 at 23:09
  • There are so many great points in here, any chance you'd chop it up and repost as separate answers so we knew how the community prioritizes each item? – Kara Marfia Jul 01 '10 at 22:10
  • Weird...is there a SO bug that allows users with 170 rep to make edits to an answer but not have the edit visible? http://serverfault.com/users/9113/joshperry made a two-line edit at the bottom, but I thought that when someone made an edit you could publicly see who it was... – Avery Payne Dec 05 '11 at 19:00
49

Do you have a disaster recovery plan and does this include IT?

Follow-ups from the great comments: If so, does it include the entire organisation and not just IT? Does it include personnel and do you test it regularly?

Related Questions:

Disaster recovery plan development best practicies or resources?

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Oskar Duveborn
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    And are they aware that DR is not just an IT problem? A lot of places seriously think of DR in terms of IT alone, and don't have plans for their paper files. – Maximus Minimus May 29 '09 at 21:45
  • Yeah, so true - though I've seen the opposite too often as well: there are great plans for where to relocate executive management and core business workers in case the office becomes unusable - but none whatsoever for getting IT to work, which when the server room is in the very same office as the disaster plan caters for, is really silly... but then again, they had great manual routines for _everything_ - which made them handle shorter IT outages well. – Oskar Duveborn May 30 '09 at 19:09
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    The answer "yes, we are fully insured" is not a valid answer. – Joseph May 31 '09 at 16:28
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    Do you have a DR plan and does it include personnel? As in where will I be sitting if the building burns down... – Jeffrey Hulten May 31 '09 at 21:54
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    Do you test it regularly? – romandas Aug 06 '09 at 20:40
40

Is the current environment documented?

Are both the policies and procedures documented and consistent?

JFV
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  • "If I were to be hired tomorrow, and the rest of my team all 'won the lottery' (or 'died in a freak accident') at lunch tomorrow, would the documentation be sufficient for me to manage the environment?" A.K.A. Is the documentation correct? REALLY correct? -Waldo – gWaldo Aug 24 '10 at 14:47
37

Do internal accounting practices assess a value to the services IT provides to other departments, or is IT simply accounted as a cost center?

(This is very nearly the same question as Stick's "Is IT a priority in your organisation or is it a necessary evil?", but phrased so as to possibly elicit an honest answer instead of the blatantly telegraphed correct lie.)

chaos
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  • i like! a bit too much managementese, but i can live with it for now – Nick Kavadias May 29 '09 at 18:24
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    Yeah. I'm afraid you need the managementese to specify the precise question. Can't hack a Xeon in 68K machine language, can't hack a manager's brain in English. – chaos May 29 '09 at 19:02
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One thing that I consider a must-have is a testing machine that has identical hardware specifications as the live server.

"How closely do your testing environments match Production?"

gWaldo
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Grant Limberg
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    In a similar vein, I'd say one of the questions should be "Do you have separate dev, stage, and production systems with a change control process?" – gharper May 29 '09 at 17:06
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    This should be part of the regular Joel test. I can't tell you how many times I've deployed to PROD, only to find a bug we didn't see because the Stress region is *four times more powerful!* – tsilb Aug 07 '09 at 16:34
34

I find it very interesting that many of the answers are worded "Do you have this?" or "are you doing this on a regular basis?" If I am going to be hired as a new sysadmin, I would expect to be able to implement these things if they were not already existing. Disaster Recovery and monitoring logs are not something that would make or break an interview. If they weren't doing these things, they will be after I was hired.

My main concern, as I mentioned earlier would be support from above. If I say we need to replace servers, I would like the benefit of the doubt. Or if I implement an annoying security policy, I don't want partners granting immunity to people who complain so they can look like nice caring bosses.

The system administrator is in a strange place in the hierarchy of corporate structure. Sometimes they are taking direction and setting their priorities based on the needs of the most entry-level personnel, and sometimes they are dictating policy to management. We are at the very bottom and the very top of the chain simultaneiously.

I am willing to play the part of the scapegoat and peon by being at the bottom, as long as management yields to my advice in those scenarios where I am at the top.

Peter Mortensen
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  • The Joel Test isn't intended to be a "you're missing 3 of 12, therefore I reject your offer" - it's just a tool to help you best evaluate the current state of IT, and negotiate accordingly. – Kara Marfia Jul 01 '10 at 21:06
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    "If they weren't doing these things, they will be after I was hired." If you have the skills to _convince_ management that they should alter according to your needs, I'm impressed. – tore- Aug 02 '10 at 13:31
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Do all new system/software/application purchases go through IT and does IT have the power to reject and suggest another system, perhaps one that is already in use at another department?

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  • aka - what's the company's approach to hardware standardization? – Kara Marfia May 30 '09 at 01:22
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    ...and software (or simply system) standardization ^^ – Oskar Duveborn May 31 '09 at 16:38
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    This is an interesting one, because it could be either negative or positive - an IT department that is more interested in IT department power than supporting the business can be quite a negative environment. – Whisk Jun 01 '09 at 14:41
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    True as well, I kinda rely in IT selecting the BEST system for the task - but I've seen way too many examples where three different offices (SAME department) tries to purchase different systems for say sales/customer support or electronic keys - just because there's a small price advantage from each respective local dealer... ...what they don't realize is the cost for centrally running and be responsible for all these different systems for the IT operations is humongous compared with actually running the same god damn system for everyone AND getting the synergy effects of people mastering it. – Oskar Duveborn Jun 01 '09 at 17:29
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    It's not about a power trip, it's about having a manageable hardware standard. This one is definitely not optional. – Kara Marfia Jun 08 '09 at 13:48
32

Are you willing to spend money for proper monitoring/logging tools?

-or, from the original Joel Test question:

Do you use the best tools money can buy?

Related Questions:

Server health monitoring software

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Jeffrey
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    I would suggest not phrasing it as "willing to spend money" but put it as "Do you use (or promote the use of) proper monitoring logging tools" Since with monitoring some of the best ones are free. Nagios, MRTG, cacti, etc. – Brian May 29 '09 at 17:20
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    Maybe even something as simple as "Do you know if a server has had an outage?" – Nick Kavadias May 29 '09 at 17:21
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    Some of the best ones are not free at all though - depending on the environment being monitored... – Oskar Duveborn May 29 '09 at 17:28
  • Perhaps the more nebulous term, "commit resources to..." is better here. Even the free ones need a server, and time to maintain. – sysadmin1138 May 29 '09 at 17:38
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    I would leave it as "willing to spend money" as the "free" ones like nagios are usually alot more expensive than an out of the box solutions and instead of capitol spends admin time instead- which eqates to money (hopefully). "Commit resources to" might be mangement saying "we're certainly willing to commit your time to fix our monitoring problems as well as you being our sysadmin" – Jim B May 29 '09 at 17:49
  • I would not say that "some of the best are free". There are some good free options like Zenoss/MRTG/etc, but once you seen some of the features of the paid for solutions you'll understand why enterprises need to spend a bit of money on ensuring their quality of service. – sclarson May 29 '09 at 18:40
  • Excellent points Jim and sparks. Free doesn't always mean free when factoring in admin time. And, some of the best are free was overly optimistic and does not take into account some enterprise features, scaling, and my limited point of view which is always expanding. – Brian May 29 '09 at 19:29
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    O think the way Joel phrased this similar concept was "Do you use the best tools money can buy?" which suits me fine for almost any conceivable profession. – SingleNegationElimination May 30 '09 at 01:57
31

May I speak with your previous sysadmin?

user7285
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Do you log on using the generic Administrator/root account?

It's always fun to throw a "no" answer in the middle of a bunch of "yeses".

Peter Mortensen
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Maximus Minimus
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  • better question: *can* you log in using a generic administrator account? (is that account enabled in the first place). Corollary: What essential tasks, if any, require being logged in as a generic superuser/administrator to perform? – SingleNegationElimination Jan 07 '12 at 02:23
23

Does IT have it's own budget?

Mine does not and we are reliant on other departments funds for everything we need. Sucks big time.

jhayes
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Do you store a copy of your backups off-site?

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May I have an allowance to continue my training and education and will you allow me to puchase materials to keep up to date on security issues?

Will you support my decisions to staff with regards to policies and procedures no matter how unpopular?

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    Questions like these to an interviewer would suggest that you are not interested in contributing to a company, but only in what you can get out of it. They also act like red flags: the interviewer might wonder what kind of controversy you got into that would lead you to ask a question like the latter one. – Mei Jun 08 '09 at 16:16
17

I'd note that, for those of us that enjoy working for startups or early-stage companies, the answer for most of these may very well be "nope, but...". What follows that statement is often quite informative.

Luke
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  • Do you have configuration change control?
  • Do you have data recovery policies?
  • Do you perform daily backups?
  • Do you have an issues database?

Update

  • Do you have built-in redundancy?
  • Do you have the best hardware money can buy?
  • Can you setup a new laptop or desktop in one step?
  • Do you have a policy in place for patching on a regular basis?
gharper
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Is IT a priority in your organisation or is it a necessary evil?

Stick
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Where's the coffee machine?

12

Do you use version control? What do you put under version control?

csexton
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Can your system administrators write code?

Rob
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    Might be better stated as "do you administrators have allocated time to automate routine activities?" – Richard Jun 04 '09 at 16:24
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Do you have response time policies/thresholds in place for critical systems? (or what's a better way to say, "Are you already familiar with the concept of what should and shouldn't get me out of bed at 3 a.m.?")

Peter Mortensen
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Do you have centralized logging? Does anyone read them?

Kyle
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Am I the only system administrator? It can be fine to be the only system administrator - in fact it can be fun, but only if the business understands the implications which brings us to:

Do you have SLAs?

Peter Mortensen
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Jason Tan
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    If the answer to the first is "yes", the followup question is "who would fill in for me during vacation/illness?" - and then you want to meet that person before making a decision. If there isn't anybody, run for the hills. – Kara Marfia May 29 '09 at 17:36
  • On the other hand, if the answer is "no" you should probably follow it up with "how many others are there?" - especially if it's a top-level enterprise admin job. – Maximus Minimus May 29 '09 at 21:42
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Can you add new user(s) in one step?

Homage to: Can you make a build in one step?

Peter Mortensen
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Ask them if, when they say System Administrator, do they actually mean SA and DBA and Net Admin and Apache/IIS Admin and Email Admin and AD Admin and desktop troubleshooter.

wcm
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Can you tell which patches are missing for which systems at any given time?

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Do you use a configuration management system like Puppet or Chef?

7

Do you use patch/change management ?

Do you perform monthly/yearly disaster recovery test ?

Is IT accountable and measured by system uptime and tickets ?

Do you use centralized ticket management for all IT departments ?

Can employees interrupt IT staff at their desks ?

Does your IT staff have input into creating solution for the business line or do they just follow directions from upper management ?

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JJ01
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Do you keep your critical hardware and software platforms licensed and under support, even when approaching end-of-life?

sysadmin1138
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Do you measure service availability and are the required thresholds for each service agreed on from a management level?

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  • Just some additional meat for this one - Q: how do you know you've improved anything if you don't measure it? A: You don't, so start measuring ^^ – Oskar Duveborn Jun 17 '09 at 07:35
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How do you know when something that requires attention has happened?

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  • Is there money allocated in the budget for training and/or attending conferences?

  • Will I be required to work on-call?

  • Do you use open source or proprietary software? Why or why not?

  • Why did the previous person in this position leave?

  • If I take a vacation will someone cover my responsibilities?

  • I don't see that the open source vs proprietary question matters. The important thing is "do you use the right software that does what you want, how you want?"; whether that be open source or not is irrelevant. – Maximus Minimus May 29 '09 at 22:24
  • I asked this question at my last job interview. For me, it was important *how* the interviewers answered the question...not necessarily that they used FOSS or not. It gave me an idea for how clued in the technical group was to issues surrounding the tools they used, or even allowed to use. Another reason I think it's a relevant question is that the answer often reflects the culture of an IT group. How flexible and open to new ideas are they? Do they encourage home-grown or off-the-shelf solutions, or a mix of the two? –  May 29 '09 at 22:42
  • Yes, that makes more sense to me. The obvious correct answer would then be "depends on the software"; whereas a rigid dogmatic answer in support of either to the exclusion of the other would be a warning sign. – Maximus Minimus May 29 '09 at 23:07
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Do I have the authority to disable a system account for a user who violates policy? This would tell you if they have a policy for computer use and who, if anyone, is responsible for enforcing the policy.

John M.
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Do you have free coffee/tea?

I know this is not exactly technical not having some goodies is a strong hint for a environment where I probably don't want to work no matter how much rocket science they technically have.

Martin M.
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  • My employer has three Starbucks on campus. Looking back, choosing between free crap coffee and Starbucks, I'll take the latter. We also have Seattle's best or some other house brew in the four cafeterias. – Luke has no name Jul 02 '10 at 00:33
5

Do you have a written definition for emergency?

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Where's your network map?

(If they don't have one, this indicates many other things are not documented)

Joseph Kern
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4

Do you know what to do when a disaster scenario happens ?

Bimo Arioseno
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Do you have an inventory system for the infrastructure, and is it designed in such a way that it will be kept up-to-date?

Xerxes
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4

Are the servers virtualized? If not, do you have a plan doing so?

I am OK with "No" to the first question but not if such a plan is non-existent.

Cheers, Kent

Peter Mortensen
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kentchen
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    I can think of a couple of reasons _not_ to virtualize servers. The second questions should rather by the reasoning not the implication that it's a bad desicision. – Martin M. Jun 08 '09 at 09:27
  • There are reasons where dedicated servers are appropriate, for example from a cost perspective, it could be cheaper to get more less power boxes than fewer more powerful boxes when the workload is easily distributed across many systems. – Mircea Chirea Oct 03 '10 at 17:42
4

Unless I've already decided that I'm not going to work there, I ask for a tour of the facilities, especially the server room.

If the chairs look like the $50 Staples special, and the keyboards are yellow with age (bonus points for looking like their older than the employee using it), then it's a "no". If the end-user computing equipment looks more than a couple years old, it could be a pass. (Ask about the hardware refresh cycle...)

If there are CRT monitors on the end-users' desks (some leniency for server-room consoles), especially if they're in obviously bad shape, it's probably a "no."

If the server room's racks are filled with white faceplates (or no racks!), you may want to pass. If there aren't more than two alike, it's probably a pass.

If you hear a modem fire up, it's probably a pass, too. Especially if it's more than once...

(Yep, these are all lessons from a single previous employer...)

gWaldo
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What's the oldest system you're using that you rely on?

We've had that creaky old FreeBSD box from 2002 in the corner, but it's so vital to the day to day use of the organisation that no-one has risked updating it. As a result it's fallen more and more out of date. Which makes it more and more of a pain to do anything with,

Amandasaurus
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Last question: Since you failed in one or more ways to be the ideal working environment with a ticketing system, config management, tested backup with offsite and bare iron restore, scheduled preventive maintenance, comfortable working arrangements and docile politics, how many of these things will I be authorized to fix?

After all, almost no organization will pass ALL these great questions. If they did, they wouldn't provide much of a challenge to a new SysAdmin.

kmarsh
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  • Do you have a security policy for all systems (not just the "important" ones)?
  • Do you have an SLA defining, in case of a disaster, what recovery windows exist?
  • Do you have defined maintenance windows for your production (and possibly test) systems?
  • What is your on-call policy?
Peter Mortensen
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Milner
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3

What are your policies regarding or how do you enforce documentation of IT systems? (This will have a direct impact on how quickly you get up to speed vs. time spent wallowing in an undocumented morass before you can begin to "make a difference".)

Peter Mortensen
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Kara Marfia
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Let's say I need a new keyboard on my workstation. What would it take for me to get one?

In my current job, the answer is: open a ticket in the crappy IT support system, get a quote from the person in charge of that buying, three days later when you receive it get the quote approved by my boss, wait a week for delivery, get yelled at for instead buying it myself with my own money in the mean time.

niXar
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3

Do you have a map of your network? Is it up-to-date and kept in a revision control system?

Peter Stuer
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3

Ask to take a look at the place that will be your office. Look at the:

  • number of people and noise in the room
  • quality of the chairs
  • size and shape of the desks
  • size and number of the monitors
  • proper light and ventilation

This is not about comfort, it's about health. Health comes first, don't you think? :)

Peter Mortensen
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Federico
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3

I don't want to flame or be outside of the rules, but when I am interviewing at a place I absolutely ask platform specific questions. Not only to judge whether my own skills will be relevant and used satisfactorily at the place but whether or not I fundamentally agree with their design decisions or am going to get stuck supporting a poorly designed platform.

I.e if someone is running their server farm on Windows I wouldn't want to work there. So "Do you guys predominantly run Windows?" Is a very valid question. For a windows admin the opposite question may be relevant. ;)

MattyB
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If the system administrator has a suggested infrastructure/process improvement, is there a way to get it heard by decision makers?

Peter Mortensen
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Brien
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For a lot of these questions so far you have to take into consideration that the person you are asking needs to look like they know what the answer is - but in reality might not give you the real answer. Some examples:

Q: do you have change control?

A: yes, we use RT

Real answer: we have RT and only the previous administrator used it and and we haven't touched it in 3 months.

Q: do you have daily backups? A: yes, we use HP Data Protector.

Real answer: Since all our users storage is on a SAN and have snapshots we use previous versions to do day-to-day restores. We HOPE our daily backups actually run and if they miss something we'd never know until we start asking you where the backups are for superimportantfile.txt.

I think that the most important things you can do are:

  1. Ask to meet your peers/subordinates. Not in an interview room but can you go see where they work and spend some time seeing what the day-to-day is like.

  2. Ask what the company expects and provides for professional development.

  3. Ask the interview and the peers/subordinate how often the company updates/upgrades/introduces new technology. The differences in answers can be enlightening.

Peter Mortensen
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Jim B
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If the setup is a mess, will you have the authority to get in there and do something about it? This is very very important - if it's going to be your responsibility, they had better give you full authority. Even if the setup is perfect, and they provide all the right answers to every other question, if you don't have that authority you are better off not taking the job.

Maximus Minimus
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2

Do you (the owner) have long range plans? Let's say your vendor of choice is either: 1) Discontinuing or deemphasing or deprecating an important tool/OS/package you use 2) Revising an important tool/OS/package, even upwards (XP to 7, for example) 3) You don't care what your vendors do, it's all IT right?

What does your boss say?

Your prospective boss's answer will go a long way to determine what kind of future you may have or even if you (should) have a future with them.

(If you and the boss, OTOH, end up spending an hour talking strategy pros and cons and trading war stories, you may have found yourself a prize! Sign that contract! :) )

dmoisan
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2

  • What compensation is offered for after-hours pager duty?

  • What does the career path for IT personnel look like here?

  • Are we restricted in any ways, as far as what tools we can use?

  • How would you say IT is viewed by senior management? Strategic business tool or unfortunately necessary overhead?

  • What is your change-management process?

  • What is your backup policy?

  • What's your unscheduled downtime look like so far, for the year? Is this more or less than usual?

  • Where would you say we needed the largest improvement?

  • Does the team trust each other?

  • Does the team engage in any team-building or after-hours activities?

  • Why did my predecessor leave?

Greg Meehan
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2

Do systems administrators have quiet working conditions?

shufler
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2

Do you have IDS (Intrusion Detection System)?

SaveTheRbtz
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Is IT its own department, or is it under the direction of another department (and which one)?

I've seen too many companies where all major IT decisions (including infrastructure upgrades, internal security policies, etc.) must be approved by Marketing or Public Relations.

Bill B
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2

Do you have an "on call" support team?

Asking whether or not you will be living with a pager/phone/notification device. And whether or not you need to adjust your fermented beverage consumption schedule.

lilott8
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1

The backup is finished after testing if recovering works?

FerranB
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1

Is there an established and detailed SLA for the services the IT department provides?

V. Romanov
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1

Does your change control incorporate ITIL or MOF?

Shawn Anderson
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1

In your experience, what has differentiated SysAds who were Great, versus ones that were merely "good" or "okay"?

gWaldo
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1

Is there an annual training budget?

romandas
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1

Will I have time and resources to work on projects to increase support, rather than merely implementing new systems, and fighting fires.

IMO, everything else is secondary to this one. If you've got time (and possibly money) to implement new support processes/software and the like, you can fix all of the "Do you have?" problems. If you've got them all, and you spend your life fighting fires, you'll still have a hellish time.

Cian
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0
  • does IT management exist solely to help the technical staff deliver?
  • are results rewarded?
johnh
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0

Would you consider yourself using the latest tehcnology available, if not, why?

The reason I would ask this is that if they use new technology all over the place, they may be willing to change fast and are willig to make changes often. Of course, this is a maybe.

tore-
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0

What sort of influence does the System Administrator position have over the direction, planning and purchasing of IT in the company?

Shaun Dewberry
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-1
  • How scalable is the current architecture?
  • How responsive is the monitoring system?
  • Can sysadmins automate tasks by writing code?
  • How is managed the team's knowledge?
  • Is IT a strategic issue for the company's business?
  • Does current IT management/processes conform to best practices / ISO standards?
Philippe
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How much do you pay? I will take care of rest.

Peter Mortensen
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mamu
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    Exactly the wrong question. Pay varies according to experience, among other things, but you want to find out what the company is like, what their practices are, and how much buy-in you have from management. – Kevin M Aug 07 '09 at 18:30
  • It is a very good question, but the LAST one to ask. – kmarsh Aug 18 '09 at 15:42