A lot of these questions seem to be ones aimed at startups. I think they are good ones, but won't necessarily map to more established companies.
In the "How strong is the team?" section:
> "Can you tell me about the team I'd be working with most closely?"
> "How do you compensate the team?"
> "How do you attract and retain really strong hires?"
> "Do you share board slides with the team?"
I'd add:
> "Who's been here the longest?"
and:
> "What's the median tenure of the engineering team?"
I'd apply these directly to the team I'd be working on. These can tell you a bit about the management culture.
And that depends almost entirely on the personality, experience, and style of individual managers. I know of what I speak. I was a very good manager, and kept senior-level engineers for many years, despite the corporation, itself, having a rather employee-hostile culture.
IMNSHO, Management culture is even more important than team culture.
I worked for a major (Fortune 5) corporation, for about a year and a half (back in the 1980s).
In that 18 months, they had three major reorgs.
After one one of them, the new VP (a lawyer), brought the team into his (very nice, very large) office, and started the intro talk with "I hate computers."
On the flip side, that is the kind of boss to which you might be able to say, "Great, I'll keep things running, just leave me do my work.", and end up with a fully autonomous position with a boss who never bugs you.
"You're all a bunch of weird dorks. I don't understand you, and I don't understand what you do; but you'd better not screw up, and, for Pete's sake, stay out of my office. This is the last time you'll be seeing the inside of it, unless I'm gonna ream you a new one."
Nice guy. Think Lumberg, from Office Space, but nastier.
I work in a large company, where we have very regular "re-orgs" and it makes no difference. It doesn't change the work I do, nor who I work with. It's busywork for middle management and power plays for executives, it doesn't affect me.
So I don't think that it's interesting to know to judge the position. It's irrelevant.
Also, is there a growth path for the position you are applying for? When I first tried software QA a few decades ago it was a dead end job, there were no opportunities for advancement. The software development and QA departments were kept totally separate.
Tenure on the eng team you are joining is so good to know. I've become the second most senior and tenured person on my current team after joining 3 months ago. I still love the company but its very different than when I joined and there was a tech lead on the team.
In the "How strong is the team?" section:
> "Can you tell me about the team I'd be working with most closely?"
> "How do you compensate the team?"
> "How do you attract and retain really strong hires?"
> "Do you share board slides with the team?"
I'd add:
> "Who's been here the longest?"
and:
> "What's the median tenure of the engineering team?"
I'd apply these directly to the team I'd be working on. These can tell you a bit about the management culture.
And that depends almost entirely on the personality, experience, and style of individual managers. I know of what I speak. I was a very good manager, and kept senior-level engineers for many years, despite the corporation, itself, having a rather employee-hostile culture.
IMNSHO, Management culture is even more important than team culture.