7 ms·

Ask HN: Am I being exploited?

• noshbrinken 10y ago
  If you decide to continue with this job, take it as an opportunity to learn two essential professional programming skills: estimating effort and managing expectations. "production ready app in iOS, Android, website, and server setup as well as website/app design and logo creation and branding" in 4 months at 18 hours a week is an unreasonable scope of work, at least for me. I would not be employed under these terms unless my hourly rate was in the thousands or tens of thousands, and even then I would be concerned about the impact of four high-stress months on my health. You are going to encounter these kinds of unreasonable requests throughout your career. The ability to explain in layman's terms and plain English why this isn't possible and to present an alternative is invaluable and it's part of what you're being paid to do. It is always better to risk disappointing the client in the beginning, by having this conversation, then it is to disappoint them in the end, by failing to deliver.
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    I think that's a good skill to know - thanks :)
• itg 10y ago
  $15/hr for "I'm building a service that should entail a production ready app in iOS, Android, website, and server setup as well as website/app design and logo creation and branding all by myself" YES, this company is using you for cheap labor
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    Can I ask how could I get about changing this situation? I go to the school that is employing me, I feel like any complaint will just impede my graduation or education. thank you :)
    • brianwawok 10y ago
      If you think you are worth more, find another job to pay more. Either use as leverage or take the other job. For what's it's worth, I think I made like $12 in college updating crappy php college websites. It was fine, gave me some resume material. Gotta start somewhere.
• _ah 10y ago
  No. You are only being exploited if you: 1. Are "worth more" in the industry (you could get paid more for the same work) 2. Are unable to take another higher paid position for whatever reason. Both of these items must be true. If you have heard of others paying more, that doesn't count... the only way you can reasonably claim to be "worth more" is if you have actually been offered a position at a higher pay rate. Then you can either take that position, or work for yourself, or turn it down because you like your current team. A situation such as yours is only exploitive if the employer is underpaying you AND blocking your ability to transfer. If it's too much to get everything done in 18 hrs / wk, then it doesn't get done. They can increase your hour cap or your deadline. These discussions are sometimes hard, but they're not complicated. What you fail to realize is that you are, right now, gaining the most valuable thing you can: experience. Though most tech shops claim to be a meritocracy, you'll discover very quickly that experience is very highly valued by hiring managers... maybe even more than it should be. So you're making $15/hr, and could be making $20 / $50 / whatever. Treat this as a learning experience to sharpen your skills and seriously buff your resume. You need to optimize for learning. NEED TO. This is the wrong time in your career to optimize for paycheck.
  • bbcbasic 10y ago
    I think this is the answer. Look at all the recent threads about grads struggling to get a job. The experience you'll get from this sounds golden. Then again it probably doesn't hurt to ask for more money. And learn to manage their expectations about what is achievable. One way is to come up with a roadmap you are comfortable with for 4 months and present it to them. Also maybe get quotes from experienced devs and show how much cheaper you are.
  • HeavenBanned 10y ago
    >This is the wrong time in your career to optimize for paycheck. This is why I want to do grunt work for Google Summer of Code -- but I'm afraid the competition even for barely-an-internship-gruntwork is too cotdamn high. Working for free is a boon if you can learn on the job.
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    I think replying to this either way will make me look arrogant or dumb. I think I am more worth in the industry, I've secured an internship that pays triple. I thank you for the input for the other thing though - I've taken your idea and talked to management about at least hiring more people seeing how they won't budge on a raise. (but are willing to hire more people?)
• alain94040 10y ago
  If you are paid hourly, then you shouldn't worry about the workload. What does the cap of 18 hours/week mean? Are you supposed to work beyond 18 hours, just not being paid? Otherwise, just work 18 hours/week, and if the project doesn't get done in 4 months, it's not your problem. Just don't agree to both a deadline and an hours cap. That would definitely be exploitation.
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    You aren't allowed to work more than 18 hours, the university won't let me. They just expect it to be done, else I'm fired and get a bad reputation at the school and future hiring.
    • DrScump 10y ago
      By "fired", do you mean expelled?
      • throwawayaya 10y ago
        Fired as in just fired, though I'm not sure, since they are well connected to the school's main operation.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• dmarlow 10y ago
  Much akin to medical students undertaking a residency, no?
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    It isn't directly related to my graduation (I never needed to work to gradaute) more like I took a job at the school, like a librarian, but instead a developer.
    • hijinks 10y ago
      underpaid yes.. but you are getting experience which is more valuable then another $10 an hour.
• soneca 10y ago
  No. From my point of view, not at all. From my point of view you are actually at a very priviliged position. A few other comments that you curiously did not reply better explain why there is no exploitation here. That said,I am not one of those people that think that privileged people should not complain. At all. Every has the right to try to improve their life. In your case, I believe you should practice negotiation. Try negotiate your salary. If dont get a raise and dont get a better offer elsewhere, maybe you are earning a fair salary. Try negotiate the deadline. Explain why is asking too much to do all that in 4 months. Maybe you will learn that their expectations of quality are much lower than yours. A logo and a website can be made on one morning if there no expectations at all. Or maybe you will end up your negotiation with a raise and more time.
  • throwawayaya 10y ago
    I think you are right, but I did not reply because HN blocks constant replies to posts for new account. I do acknowledge very privileged to be in this position, and I am actually fine with the pay for now. The reason why I asked this question was because someone told me I was being exploited for my labour, I soon realized that it seems like I was. I wanted to see if I could do anything about it seeing how there will be a point where a student who actually needs a job like this would become overworked by the weird requirements of the build.
    • Veen 10y ago
      > someone told me I was being exploited for my labour Some people believe the employer-employee relationship is intrinsically exploitative, so that's not saying much. I don't think you're being exploited although you are probably being mismanaged. I'd just take the job for what it is. You gain experience, you work your 18 hours a week until the deadline, and if you aren't done in that time, it's not your problem.
• a-saleh 10y ago
  On one hand, 15$/hr, amount of work required, 18hr/week cap, sounds like the job I had while in college. On the other hand, 18/hr week cap and arbitrary hard deadline sounds borderline exploitative. But to me, it sounds much more like a mismanagement. If I were in your shoes, I would first go to the person responsible for continuation of my employment and talk about the possibility of you not handling the work-load. It might be that this person doesn't even know what is asked of you, but would be able to tell you things about the process of evaluation of your work, possibility of hand-over, extending of your employment, when would they terminate it e.t.c Then I would get the person who represents the people whose problem you are solving with your software, with the one who created the product specification (i.e. you got that it has to be iOS, Android,e.t.c from some piece of paper, hopefully with more specifics and a known author :-) and as well as person that is responsible for the progress of your work into the same room. Might be a single person. Might not :-) Now I would try to negotiate reduction of scope (i.e. I would probably want to drop the iOS and Android apps and focus on the web/backend, focus only on the biggest pain points that you want to solve). This is why it would be good to have some user representative in the room, maybe you learn that EVERYBODY has iPhones, and nobody would use a web-browser on their phone, or some other arbitrary thing, that would help you reduce scope/prioritize features. I would try to leave in just the Minimum Viable ;) Then I would setup probably weekly meetups with the person that the work will be completed so that we would see if the deadline needs to be extended. Your situation kind-a reminds me of a weird fan-fiction about the second Death Star and its project manager [1] [1] https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11685932/1/Instruments-of-Destruction https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11685932/1/Instruments-of-Destr...
• mattbgates 10y ago
  It happens. Gain experience. Move on. I worked for a tyrant for $12/hr fixing bugs and adding new things to the program. Over a year and a half I did this. It was Visual Basic 6.0 and this job I had about 6 years ago. I was severely underpaid, especially for putting up with his crap, but with no money and student loans @ $40k, I had to do what I had to do. No sense in just quitting a job without having another lined up. So what did I do? I always kept looking for a job during my time there, but in my time there, I did what I had to do, acquired all the knowledge I needed, added everything in detail on my resume -- for example, I made the program more user-friendly and boosted our sales by over 200%. It definitely looks good on my resume and I'm able to talk about it in interviews. I was pretty much hired to make the program more user-friendly and that is what I did, and it drew so many new customers. That was about the only benefit to me, I did not actually see any raise for my efforts. In fact, it was not until I found another job, making just $16/hr when he offered me double my salary. I think I tried it for about a week before I realized I was going to suffer immensely: "I'm paying you to do this job... why.. how..." and all that kind of stuff. He also installed spy software on my computer to make sure I was doing the job. That's the kind of boss he was, a micromanager, complete with paranoia. Read more about that here: http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/ http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/ I think most of us... are never making the salary we actually want and most of us probably won't unless we are working in Silicon Valley OR we run our own business and charge our own prices. Companies are certainly after profit, but rather than always try and ask for the salary you want: see what else the company will offer you. For example, I had gotten a job with another company that paid a pretty good wage, far more than the $12/hr, and they also gave me a company phone which I don't pay for, 3-4 weeks vacation + sick days, and I had only lived about 10 minutes from the job. That first job, I may have disliked, but I knew it wasn't going to last forever because I am a college graduate with skills that are in demand. I'm a web developer and a programmer. Always learning new things. What company would turn away a person with college experience AND programming skills? I've expanded well beyond Visual Basic 6.0. While working at your current company, build up your portfolio and your resume. Update your LinkedIn profile and get RECOMMENDATIONS ( http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/useful-feature-linkedin-recommendations/ http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/useful-feature-li... ) Get some clients from freelance and have them write reviews about you. Any kind of experience you can get: write it down and turn it into something beautiful on your resume and if you have a portfolio, add it there too so you can have proof. Don't hesitate to take screenshots of your work. That first job gave me all the tools and experience I needed. I even built a website for the boss which I took a screenshot of as well as screenshots of the areas of the program that I worked on and built the user interface. I left my name in the meta data as a creator of the website and it is still there over 6 years later! Definitely ensures no company questions that I actually built the website. It also gave me real world experience for understanding how to deal with an arrogant micromanaging tyrant boss. My advice is this: Always aim for a price range of the salary you want to be making, within a $5000 range or so, ask for it, and negotiate a bit. Companies are after their own best interests, and if they can get you cheap, they will. They will take advantage of your services. If you want to ask for a raise after a year, which you probably should because that is normal, than at least have something to go on: build a case for reasons why they should give you a raise. But do take into account what the company offers you besides money. You could also do what I do.. how I make the extra money I want to be making, although I'm still always working on it and not fully there yet: side projects, freelancing, etc. There are certainly ways to make money without asking your company for it. Maybe they have a set budget that they want to pay everyone. Just remember: Those making the highest salaries are usually looked at first when it comes to layoffs.
• elastic_church 10y ago
  Given that you could make $6k a month interning at facebook doing way less then yes you are being taken advantage of Enjoy the project though that's alot of experience especially for your own ideas
• chris11 10y ago
  > state school That's what I noticed. I really don't expect state schools to undergrad student workers much. So I wouldn't really worry about it too much. If you can find another job that pays more elsewhere, take it. But I'm really not surprised at all with your pay.
• joshontheweb 10y ago
  Shoot. I only made $8.75/hr doing development work at my university. It was excellent experience and once I hit the market I was much better prepared than those who hadn't done any real world work yet. Look at it as a good learning experience, enjoy your time, and look forward to the massive increase in pay once you move on.
• sauronlord 10y ago
  No. You deserve exactly what you have right now. Nothing more, nothing less. Read Napolean Hill's "The Laws of Success". A basic rule to use to succeed at life is: - always render more service, and at a higher quality than that which you are paid for Go out and do amazing things, constantly increasing your value and trading up
• atmosx 10y ago
  IMHO one of the following things is at play here: 1) They have low-quality standards, so they expect something that barely works 2) They don't expect you to actually deliver, only to drive the project from point A to point B, but they didn't tell you just in case you could drive the project to point C (that could be a little exploitative, but that doesn't really matter). 3) They don't care about the result because it's part of a program that runs for <reasons>. I would bet for (3). Either way, If I were you, I'd just do my best within the constraints they gave me, trying to fulfill the minimum requirements and then move on without taking this too seriously. Take this as a learning experience, at this point you shouldn't care about the money, under regular circumstances. Take it as a learning experience.
  • jackgolding 10y ago
    Very good comment and this is something that employees pick up more as they become more commercially savvy.
• ramtatatam 10y ago
  Change is good, if you are unhappy - simply go somewhere better.
• Zooper 10y ago
  Yes. Don't comply with any exploitation ever. They're exercising unstated leverage over you because you're a student at their university.
• jason_slack 10y ago
  I was in this situation in college as well. I was writing code for minimum wage as part of work-study program to help pay my tuition. I looked at the larger picture. I was gaining experience. It wasn't costing me gas as I was already at the college each day. I worked with great people that I still communicate with to this day. I was offered a full-time job at the college after I graduated.
• cauterized 10y ago
  I wouldn't necessarily use the term "exploited" (I would save that for a different sort of situation), but you've certainly been put in an untenable position. It sounds to me as if the problem here is not the pay grade but the expectations. Did you know what those expectations would be when you agreed to the project? What you're expected to get done in the designated number of hours sounds to me as if it would be unreasonable at virtually any pay rate. Assuming the app you're building has a certain level of complexity, I wouldn't expect those results in that time frame from anyone less than the most experienced professionals. And it's obviously unreasonable to expect you, as a student, to work at an equivalent velocity. My guess would be that the people in charge of this project don't actually understand the work involved in it. Either way, I would run, not walk away from it.