If you already hate them asking no questions is fine - you already know you wouldn't accept the job if offered so you should just say that and ask how quick the interview can end (sometimes they have quotas to fill and since you already have blocked off the time it costs you almost nothing to stay and can be a polite way to help someone else thus doing a good deed).

If you are inclined to like them enough to accept a job you need to ask questions! You need to be sure your inclination is correct. The worst case is you accept a job and realize after a month it is a bad job - all your other leads have gone cold and unemployment won't like you quitting now (check your local rules for if you can collect and if so what, but beware that you may have to keep working while looking for a job which is hard)

Of course there are different situations. If you are signing a 1 month contract you sill are watching your other leads anyway in that month. (or they are paying you enough to take 3-6 months off looking for the next contract)

I think asking some intelligent questions about the business or the work is a MUCH bigger advantage than just a tiebreaker.

It demonstrates a LOT about how well you will work out at the company, how interested you are in it, how much of a self-starter you are.

Oh for sure. Ask questions, just not annoying whiteboard questions. Also I hate this “ask us anything” part of the interview. It’s so performative.

It should be rephrased as “the jeopardy round” since it’s still about the candidate, but phrased backwards. And it’s not a time for REAL questions, it’s a time to show you’re smart and attentive but not TOO smart, you want the interviewer to feel good about themselves so they can feel good about you.

> what my response would be

I don’t ask candidates to do anything I wouldn’t put up with. It would be unusual but I would be game (if they were serious). Fundamentally that’s what my fantasy is about: a world where interviewer and interviewee have mutual respect for each other.

In the recent past I’ve asked candidates to walk me through code they’ve written. I’m super happy to reciprocate for 15 min and I think the candidate (if they’re working with me directly) would get a lot out of it.

"I...I don't know that!" [Interviewer is violently ejected out of the window]

It’s a trick question. The number is a distraction. If they don’t ask the model year of the VW Beatle they’re clearly not detail oriented and can’t be trusted. /s

The employee also wants to understand working conditions like company culture, overtime expectations, etc.theres lots of fuzzier questions you can and should ask in interviews because interviewers will almost never intentionally reveal this information if asked directly.

The pay question is valid, but not appropriate for a technical interview. If someone asked me I wouldn’t even know the answer. That would be a question for the recruiter or possible engineering manager.

I think it’s 100% okay to ask about pay in an interview but not okay if it’s the only thing you ask about.

For me: I care about the day-to-day of who I’m working with and what that dynamic is like (in addition to money and benefits).

> The main thing the employee wants (in most cases) is money, which is far easier to determine the value of

Money isn't important if you never see it. If the employer can't solve leetcode on the spot, how are you to believe they will be able to figure out how to make payment?