15 ms·

How I didn't become a SoundClouder

410 points by tethys 9y ago

kevinmannix 9y ago
This is unfortunate. I hope you find a new place quickly - having the rug pulled out from under your feet does not seem to make for a pleasant experience. It's an interesting look into a management team convincing itself of a better financial situation then what the actual situation was, and makes you wonder how far down the chain any indication of impending layoffs / tight financial situation traveled. I must imagine the CTO would know himself, but perhaps he was given explicit affirmation that financials would be alright for hires like this, until all of a sudden it wasn't?
pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
> The challenge wasn’t trivial and I spent the whole weekend working on it (~20hours) For this shit alone they should be burned to the ground. Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks"? Every time I hear this during a recruitment I'm like "ooooh, so you just do a mass-casting, and see who's the most desperate?". Nope, nope, nope...
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  While I don't think a 20 hour project is reasonable -- I do like the option of doing a shorter project when offered in lieu of a timed coding test or an hour interview. I think it's one of the most close-to-actual-work things you can do (especially if they give you a problem at least close to what you're going to be working on everyday). Designed well, I could imagine a test that would take 1 to 2 hours (of course you can't control how long someone will work on something, but if I ask you to reverse a string in python I don't think it's reasonable for that to take hours), and succinctly test for clean architecture and good general software engineering principles.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    The problem is that most of the time is like solving newspaper puzzles. Last time I got a stupid exercise about counting amount of 4s and 0s in a number, while obeying to a specific pattern, then generate numbers that according to that pattern would match a specific formula, while taking into consideration some GCD relations among those numbers. Yeah, cool exercise for a weekend. Zero value when writing enterprise distributed systems with web/native GUIs.
  - zdragnar 9y ago
    In my experience designing these things, 1-2 hours only provides enough time for very simple assignments, which aren't enough to actually inform the reviewer much at all about you as an individual. It's hard to get one at 4 hours, but that provides just enough to really see something while still being respectful of candidates' time. Of course, this is entirely dependant on the type of programming that you're hiring for!
- romanovcode 9y ago
  While I agree that 20h working assignment is ridiculous I saw some serious primadonnas while interviewing who declined to do a simple 15-30 minutes on-site coding challenge because they have extensive github or whatever they told me. Needless to say those candidates didn't got hired.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    While I rather like "Pri madonna", it's originally simple Italian for "first lady": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna
    - Arkaad 9y ago
      So what?
  - hardwaresofton 9y ago
    Why even ask for resumes if you're going to ignore them? I also get very annoyed when people ask about your experience, then in the very next breath pretend none of it matters and you should do fizzbuzz. If we as an industry don't trust/value the stated experience of others, why do we continue to ask for it? Maybe tech companies should just stop accepting resumes then?
    - hvidgaard 9y ago
      FizzBuzz is a great way to see if the dev experience listed is total bullshit.
      - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
        yeah like that one company asking me to do Slack to work at their inventory management startup ;-) Totally related, in so many ways.
      - bphogan 9y ago
        Not sure about that. FizzBuzz is an interview question you just expect. RosettaCode has every FizzBuzz solution out there. Tons of people know how to FizzBuzz. This is just "learning enough to pass the test" - a canned answer like the one you know you have for "How do you deal with multiple simultaneous high priority projects?" or "What's your biggest weakness?" You may be filtering out lazy lazy candidates with FizzBuzz. But just because they can do it doesn't mean they can ship code.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  I interviewed with one company whose approach to this was smarter than most: they gave me a little problem to solve, but paid me a couple hundred bucks as compensation for the time I'd need to put into it. That took the sting out of having to do a homework assignment on my own time. I suppose the main objection to that would be "but we'd end up paying out so much money to people we don't hire!", but that feels to me like it says more about that company's recruiting process. Just wait until you're serious about potentially hiring somebody before you bust out the homework assignments and you're fine.
  - janpieterz 9y ago
    Was going to comment with this. I think homework assignments can work great, but compensation for the time seems totally logical, and it should somewhat be in the area of reasonable too, not just a 'spend 20 hours but get 200 bucks' either.
  - listentojohan 9y ago
    Also incentivise the company to select a problem that is related to the actual work that they do / need done.
- malaporte 9y ago
  We started doing challenges like this in our hiring process some years ago. Our challenges are open-ended so the time spent on it really is up to the applicant, but you can come up with a good solution in a few hours. The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions. Note that we give such challenges to candidates after they passed through a phone screen and a first interview with a pair of engineers.
  - bogomipz 9y ago
    >"The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions." This whole idea of asking people do use up their nights and weekends to do free work is completely ridiculous. And the justification is always the same - "we think its better than implementing algorithms on whiteboards." Well who ever said writing code on a whiteboard was necessary? This justification is ridiculous as it suggests there are just two possibilities for hiring people - algorithmic puzzles and unpaid work.
    - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
      I would just make a short on-site, and not waste more of the time. It's super simple ;-)
    - philjohn 9y ago
      This is why it needs to be a challenge related to the employer, but not an actual feature they're going to go and use. At my last place we used one, said "please don't spend more than 5 hours on it" - it was a challenge to read a specific industry format (e.g. test you can go and find something to read it, not implement a library to do so ... not reinventing the wheel) and present it in a basic RESTful web app (testing that you know what REST is, and can implement basic CRUD). Never had an issue getting it done, and it was very illuminating, some people who passed through the initial interview with flying colours turned in absolute crap.
      - 9y ago
- duiker101 9y ago
  I'd rather spend 20 hours in a weekend doing an homework like this than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. At least I can actually show that I know something other than just sweating and look really dumb.
  - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
    Last time I was hiring an iOS dev, we had a cool 2 hour pairing session (it was supposed to be 1 hour, but time flies when you're having fun), doing something really simple in the scope of the project. He shown how he works, and tackles problems, answered some questions, got hired. You really can hire in a humane way, you just need to want it.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Pair programming tests are fair because the company is investing the same time as candidate, just like any interview. Asking candidates to do tests on their own time is rude and dumb.
    - protonfish 9y ago
      If it's worth your time, its worth my time. I am happy to do any interview testing and activities as long it is on location. Any "homework" longer than an hour or so is disproportionally a burden on the candidate. I feel it is unethical and a dealbreaker for me.
  - macca321 9y ago
    Except when you deliver the homework, working, with tests, and then you receive a rejection with incorrect bikesheddy feedback , or even worse, no feedback at all.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - kintalo 9y ago
      What's wrong with that? If they leave feedback people can argue and claim it's invalid. Interviewing at a company isn't a free mentoring resource.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks" It's not the recruiters, they are just the messenger. But yeah this is a joke.
  - tnolet 9y ago
    If the challenge feels like "silly homework" then something is clearly wrong, but completing challenges during an application process if very, very necessary. I've been in a couple of "hiring manager" roles and many times the challenge completely exposed under par developers with otherwise interesting cv's. Sloppy code, beginner mistakes etc. It's maybe a sign of the times where hiring managers need to actively test whether someone is propping up their CV with stuff or is actually knowledgeable. I wish it were different, but alas it is not.
    - valuearb 9y ago
      Your challenges are biasing and filtering results in ways you aren't aware of.
- kayoone 9y ago
  As developers we are really fortunate that we often don't have to put up with this shit, but i have some designer friends (mostly fashion) where the job market isn't nearly as good and they have to go through shit like this all the time, because there is just no alternative. In those cases, if you don't agree with those weekend projects, you will most likely just not get a job because someone else will do it. If you ask for compensation for your time you will most likely hear a mad laugh and a "Nope"
- ngcazz 9y ago
  You can't come out of it knowing any less, I think I'd mostly be happy to do it.
- deleted 9y ago
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- ryandrake 9y ago
  I bet doctors don't have to do "surgery challenges" or "whiteboard anatomy pop quizzes" in order to get hired at a new hospital. What is it that their industry is doing that software engineering is not? This is a rhetorical question--we all know what they are doing, but everyone here's usually against it.
  - segmondy 9y ago
    Doctors go through heavy schooling, residency. Do you know how many hours they work a week while in residency? Don't even compare.
jackvalentine 9y ago
I'd be interested to read that employment contract.
deleted 9y ago
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jaymzcampbell 9y ago
This behaviour just further adds to my list of reasons I will not trust any company no matter how cool they might try to act. A company is ultimately only interested in itself. It's not your friend. The fact this guy was moving country just makes it even more disgusting.
latch 9y ago
As a layperson, I'm surprised this is legal. First and foremost, why wouldn't you be entitled to whatever notice/pay your employment contract stipulates? Even in an at-will environment, I imagine if the contract says the employer must give you 4 weeks of notice, well, that's what they owe you. Furthermore, at some point, hiring people that you have good reason to suspect you won't be able to employ must become fraudulent, no? I'd talk to a lawyer unless the contract was never signed.
- YorickPeterse 9y ago
  Typically in the EU (or at least here in The Netherlands) you can be fired on the spot (without a notice ahead of time) in the first month (usually referred to as a "trial month"). I suspect this is what SoundCloud took advantage of.
  - Jakob 9y ago
    That’s Netherland-specific. EU countries have very different probationary period terms. In Germany you have at least 2 weeks notice during the probation period which is usually six months long. OP should ask a lawyer. I think this is not legal.
    - alex_duf 9y ago
      It's the same in France as well, you can be fired any time the first four months, no reason needed. Equally you can also leave any time you want if you don't like the job.
      - rasjani 9y ago
        Same in Finland.
      - oh_sigh 9y ago
        So normally, you can't leave a job you don't like after 1 month? What is the process for quitting like? Here in the US, I've only ever seen '2 weeks notice' be a courtesy - you could just stop coming to work, or announce that the current day is your last.
hardwaresofton 9y ago
Maybe the empathy is misplaced, but this seems like 90% of airing of the dirty laundry of Soundcloud and 10% of asking if anyone is looking for someone to hire. I think you could have done the latter without throwing Soundcloud under the bus _too much_. Yes, they screwed you out of what was an accepted job offer, and you should definitely do everything in your power to get anything that was owed to you, after carefully reading the employment contract and researching your rights, however I'm sure that CTO (and the company as a whole) is not having a great time either. There was already cause for some reservations given the bad press that was circling the company... Shit happens.
- hvidgaard 9y ago
  Part of me is saying that while the guy was screwed over by SoundCloud, he simply didn't cover his bases in the contract. There is simply no way I'd sign a contract that requires me to quit my job, let my accomodation go, move to a different country, without some clause about compensation for termination. It may seem obvious now, but I always require 3 months of pay from the last day of employment - this is in effect from the moment they sign the contract, so they can cancel it all they want, but they still have to pay me 3 months of salery. If they don't want to sign on that, I don't consider it a serious offer anyway. This is only for jobs in a city where the jobs are plenty. For moving to Berlin it'd have to be higher.
  - hardwaresofton 9y ago
    I agree, but I think it is incredibly uncommon for people to think critically about employment contracts in Tech. People generally just take whatever "standard" contract they receive at whatever small-mid-large size company, and I would guess that most don't even read them all the way through. Even as someone who likes to think that they consider contracts carefully, I recently signed a contract with a 12-month (!!!) non complete cause. Clearly I don't think critically enough about employment contracts either. It's so hard to know things like this without experience, and there aren't enough people spreading (this kind) of knowledge.
    - 9y ago
asteinbr 9y ago
I can't imagine that you don't get any compensation. Germany has good rights for employees. I would contact an attorney for employment law. Maybe you can get something. I mean you are in a very unpleasant situation. All the best for you.
- Jdam 9y ago
  It's not legal. I looked this up when I joined my company (in Berlin) last year. Even if you don't sign anything but the recruiter says/writes that you will be hired, this is already regarded as an "Absicht" (Intention) and they have to compensate you for some time. Get a lawyer to sort this out. Will be worth it.
  - degenerate 9y ago
    Would he need a German or US lawyer? Or is the general practice to get a local lawyer and let them handle all the cross-border details?
    - MatthewWilkes 9y ago
      The contract almost certainly specifies that the choice of law will be German law. Either way, it seems the author is based in Prague currently, so I'm not sure how US law would figure into it.
      - degenerate 9y ago
        I thought SoundCloud was a US company?
        pyroinferno 9y ago
        Soundcloud is a German company. Also, if a American company is operating in Germany they follow German laws. That is why he would need a German lawyer.
sheeshkebab 9y ago
It’s bad, but not as bad as a making an offer to someone (me), having that someone leave the country to finalize get the work visa and finalize the move, and then cancelling the offer. That was not cool. Oh good old times when I ‘trusted’ these mother fucking companies.
Sorreah 9y ago
Having been in a similar situation myself I can sympathize. And knowing companies just get away with it helps you realize that you should never ever feel any loyalty towards an employer, potential or current.
- pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  Oh you're entering house of pain believing "companies are loyal" ;-) Definitely NOT in Berlin.
michaelt 9y ago
Early in my career, I thought I was always doing someone a favour by making them a job offer. After all, I'm just giving them more options to choose between, right? Later I learned people who end up out of a job won't see it that way. Especially if they've quit a secure job and relocated. In my case I was on the fence about a guy I interviewed, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, it didn't work out and I had to fire him. Hiring someone just as you're about to have big layoffs is even worse, as the blame isn't shared - it's all on the employer. Now when I hire, I do everything I can to avoid this sort of mistake :)
jakub_g 9y ago
Honestly this is what scares me about moving countries to join startups and small companies (and even established companies). It doesn't help that I have 3 months notice at current job - plenty of time for the company to dissolve the contract. In fact, a friend of mine did the very same thing (wanted to move to a Berlin startup two years ago) and also he was terminated before he arrived. Don't know how the financial side of the issue was solved though. Regarding the notice period, regulations probably differ by country, AFAIK in some countries notice is period is gradually increasing, i.e. on day 1 it's measured in days, not in weeks/months. That complicates things a lot. When you move countries, the company is in much more comfortable position for the first few weeks.
- ghaff 9y ago
  There's always a "grass in greener" risk for all sorts of reasons. And that risk is almost certainly amplified for companies that are smaller/less well-established/on rocky financial ground/etc. And, of course, relocating magnifies the effect of those risks even more. Not to say you should never voluntarily change jobs of course. But I've known a lot of people over the years who have basically hopped from a stable position with some degree of dissatisfaction into something that just didn't work out from which it took a fair bit of time and effort to recover.
bambax 9y ago
And now this has been flagged? Why??? HN should really implement some kind of system where flagged posts would be listed, together with a reason (and maybe, why not, an appeals process).
- mynewtb 9y ago
  And a way to vouch for posts, just like you can for comments.
  - detaro 9y ago
    You can vouch once something has become [dead], the difference between posts and comments is that posts have the additional state where [flagged] shows but they are not [dead] yet.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      How much karma do you need to vouch?
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  IMO it should show you the list of users who flagged it, so you can clearly see who might have an agenda. edit: I don't suggest this lightly. Flagging is not the same as voting. It carries enormous weight and can outright kill submissions. Because of that, IMO the usernames of flaggers should be public.
- Gigablah 9y ago
  I'm surprised it's still on the front page despite the flagging, maybe HN did change something.
bitcharmer 9y ago
Sadly this scenario is not uncommon even among bigger employers. I was with a big investment bank abroad when after a few rounds of redundancies that I somehow managed to survive over the few months I was with them, we were finally told the situation was now stable and we have lots of work planned for the next few years. Hooray. Tell wife, terminate nursery contracts for our kids in our country of origin, arrange moving our stuff to the country I was working in for good, commit to renting a new apartment for the next 12 months, buy airline tickets and lots of other expenses. Then I get the news. The remaining few people are being let go. No apology, no compensation. Just like that. To some degree it's a game of luck, I guess, but I've been actively refusing their offers ever since. Fool me once...
- erikb 9y ago
  I hope so much that as many people as possible read your story. Don't trust the word of people who profit from your trust. Don't bet your whole family on your boss.
  - seasonalgrit 9y ago
    Agreed. This is part of why it's important to attend to one's own financial security -- if one doesn't have a safety fund (6 months of living expenses minimum) that should be number one priority. makes all the difference when navigating employment transitions. I also really liked the suggestion elsewhere in the comments to negotiate in the offer letter/contract 3 months of pay after the last day of work. I haven't tried that but it's something I'll consider in the future.
    - jorvi 9y ago
      The 'six months of living expenses minimum' plus 'fridge+car+laundry machine' fund get touted around a lot, but they ignore the reality that, while living expenses have only been going up, pay has stagnated. Most families are barely scraping by with only ~€300 a month leeway. Assuming €3000 living expenses a month and a combined income of ~€3500 (removing ~€200 a month for random expenses that always pop up), saving €18.000 would take 5 years assuming absolutely nothing bad happens in the mean time. Add to that the fridge+car+laundry fund and some bad luck, and you're looking at 8-10 years of no-fun-expenses-allowed saving. As one would say: get real.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mynewtb 9y ago
Why is this flagged?
- 076ae80a-3c97-4 9y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that someone at SoundCloud didn't like this appearing on Hacker News.
soci 9y ago
> In the evening, I finally received a response from the recruiter. She was on the sick leave without knowing any details about the situation. She forwarded me to her manager. It's very likely the recruiter was laid off too.
stevefan1999 9y ago
long story a little bit short with details 1. OP quit his original job and applied for SoundCloud 2. OP passed the code challenge and interview and was recruited, its quite positive 3. OP is about to relocate to Berlin but 4. SoundCloud then announced the layoff and OP was one of them! Just before his contract is going to be activated 5. OP is now unemployed, alone in Berlin, frightened and hopeless
mkane89 9y ago
WHY on earth is this FLAGGED!? it is important to draw attention to acts of gross negligence, like this hiring at soundcloud, so that companies (1) see the impacts of such irresponsible behavior and hopefully do not repeat something like it (2) find help for him to get back on his feet immediately. i am a current soundclouder (iOS developer) but was not part of the interview process for him. i can vouch that the situation was awful well before he got the offer, and they mislead him. the hiring should have stopped long ago, and soundcloud has put peoples' lives off course in the short/medium term because of their reckless hiring when they were running out of money. shameful
- mkane89 9y ago
  hacker news has once again shown itself to prioritize being a home for trolls more than a legitimate news forum that helps the community
  - randomerr 9y ago
    Welcome to a democratic voting systems. What people see as the new shiny is what get voted in.
    - mkane89 9y ago
      ew, if only we can turn around the bro + gossip culture and actually focus on important things for once in this industry
- BlackjackCF 9y ago
  Probably some folks at Soundcloud who are salty...
peternicky 9y ago
I know this story takes place in EU but just FYI, this would be an unfortunate but completely legal situation in USA.
- tootie 9y ago
  Their CTO is 6 months on the job and moved to Germany for the job. He quite possibly doesn't understand EU law. He also seems to have inherited a shit sandwich and is being forced to eat it.
jbapple 9y ago
The CTO who made the phone call appears to be Artem Fishman: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/soundcloud-co-founder-takes-product-role-yahoo-alum-steps-in-as-cto/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/soundcloud-co-founder-take...
Clubber 9y ago
So I believe the CTO referred to in the article is Artem Fishman from Yahoo based on this article: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-co-founder-eric-wahlforss-switches-role-as-it-hires-cto/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-co-founder...
southphillyman 9y ago
Very unfortunate and hopefully there is a way for the victim to be compensated. I once worked at a financial instituion where they hired a bunch of contractors for a project which didn't have an approved budget. Somehow the budget was never approved and after a week or two all of the contractors were let go. Many of them moved from several states away and left previous jobs. I guess there is an increased level of risk if you're a contractor but I still thought it was pretty callous to hire 15+ people from all over the country if the budget wasn't a stone cold lock for approval.
willyyr 9y ago
You should definitely consult a lawyer as i'm guessing you have a german contract. Even if you haven't started but signed everything you have something called trial period (Probezeit) which has at least a two weeks notice for termination.
DoubleGlazing 9y ago
I used to work as a developer in a logistics firm. For a short while it was going through some financial difficulties. It was no secret among the staff, many of whom were jumping ship. Those that weren't (myself included) were making plans to do the same. Despite this the MD insisted on keeping the recruitment process going and carrying through with the graduate recruitment scheme. His reasoning was that he couldn't claim that his company was growing if it wasn't hiring. It was deception plain and simple, but for this particular MD morals were merely something he had once heard about. Come the hour they did have to withdraw firm offers for both experienced hires and five graduates. It was particularly nasty for the graduates as they went through a ridiculously extensive recruitment process - including spending a weekend away at a woodland activity centre where they were forced to do team building exercises and climb a mountain in the dark. Long story short, they kept the recruitment process going to make it look like the company was doing better than it was. It was brutal, but the MD didn't care. He was probably more worried about where his next Merc was coming from.
- redm 9y ago
  Sad story for the new hires. A couple of thoughts: Large companies fail too in much the same way so I'm not sure how much "startup" specific this is. Businesses that are struggling may continue operations as normal, including recruitment, while they seek additional funding or some other inflection point. Companies are often transparent when the times are good and much less so when struggling. It's self-preservation. If they say were in big trouble, the top talent leaves first. It's manifest destiny. So, they put their heads down and try to steer the company through it. It's a terrible situation all around when a business fails, everyone loses.
- paradite 9y ago
  I think you accidentally or intentionally revealed your location by mentioning "woodland".
- jerrylives 9y ago
  Reminds me of my recent interview with Buzzfeed for a SRE position. It consisted of * A half hour introductory call with the recruiter * Another half hour call with an engineer about the position * An hour-long technical phone interview * Eight hour onsite technical interview * Coming back in for a final interview with the product manager and then a "work party" where I had to show a "lead" how to do regexes because he couldn't figure them out (this dude had been working there for four years) So I did all that - including missing a day of work and thus pay - and was told that I was the first person who actually made it through the whole process. I then asked if that meant I'd be receiving an offer / moving forward and they said no, because the team was "Still figuring out the interview process" and that in the future they would be sure to think of me. I reached out about possible remuneration, because I had already given almost 20 hours of my time to them as well as actionable expertise. Still haven't heard back.
Danihan 9y ago
This is disgusting behavior from Soundcloud upper management, they need to be held liable for breach of contract. How could upper management be allowing recruiting at the same time they are planning massive layoffs. Ridiculous.
- falsedan 9y ago
  This is completely fine business decision-making. The only feedback that matters to people who make these sorts of decisions is money, so the only effective action to take here is: 1. contact a lawyer who specialises in workplace law & sue; 2. unionise and strike.
valuearb 9y ago
Don't give 20 hours of your life to a programming excercise for a job application, unless they are compensating you. If your new employer sets your start date 7 weeks in the future, keep interviewing. You don't have a job yet. I recently signed an offer letter with a firm that required a drug and background screen and a start date 2 weeks out. So knowing i didn't actually have a job yet, I kept interviewing, received two more job offers, and took the best one. i called the first company the friday before my monday start and told them i wasn't coming in.
- rezashirazian 9y ago
  I personally enjoy programming exercises and have no problem spending a few hours tackling these types of problems. However I'd refuse to do it for free if it's obviously something they're going to use in their product or if it's something that takes 20 hours to complete.
expertentipp 9y ago
OP got screwed eastern European style. Over here we have short sides of all three sticks: no job security, miserable salaries, and non existent social support. What's infuriating for me personally is that managers deciding to fire oftentimes are employed themselves by a subsidiary in a country with high job security (e.g. Germany, Sweden), playing with the EU's free movement of workers in a very nasty and exploitive manner.
FormerSClouder 9y ago
The OP should be happy. He may have dodged a bullet on work environment. Shady is as shady does.

410 points by tethys 9y ago

This is unfortunate. I hope you find a new place quickly - having the rug pulled out from under your feet does not seem to make for a pleasant experience. It's an interesting look into a management team convincing itself of a better financial situation then what the actual situation was, and makes you wonder how far down the chain any indication of impending layoffs / tight financial situation traveled. I must imagine the CTO would know himself, but perhaps he was given explicit affirmation that financials would be alright for hires like this, until all of a sudden it wasn't?

pawelkomarnicki 9y ago

> The challenge wasn’t trivial and I spent the whole weekend working on it (~20hours) For this shit alone they should be burned to the ground. Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks"? Every time I hear this during a recruitment I'm like "ooooh, so you just do a mass-casting, and see who's the most desperate?". Nope, nope, nope...

hardwaresofton 9y ago
While I don't think a 20 hour project is reasonable -- I do like the option of doing a shorter project when offered in lieu of a timed coding test or an hour interview. I think it's one of the most close-to-actual-work things you can do (especially if they give you a problem at least close to what you're going to be working on everyday). Designed well, I could imagine a test that would take 1 to 2 hours (of course you can't control how long someone will work on something, but if I ask you to reverse a string in python I don't think it's reasonable for that to take hours), and succinctly test for clean architecture and good general software engineering principles.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pjmlp 9y ago
  The problem is that most of the time is like solving newspaper puzzles. Last time I got a stupid exercise about counting amount of 4s and 0s in a number, while obeying to a specific pattern, then generate numbers that according to that pattern would match a specific formula, while taking into consideration some GCD relations among those numbers. Yeah, cool exercise for a weekend. Zero value when writing enterprise distributed systems with web/native GUIs.
- zdragnar 9y ago
  In my experience designing these things, 1-2 hours only provides enough time for very simple assignments, which aren't enough to actually inform the reviewer much at all about you as an individual. It's hard to get one at 4 hours, but that provides just enough to really see something while still being respectful of candidates' time. Of course, this is entirely dependant on the type of programming that you're hiring for!
romanovcode 9y ago
While I agree that 20h working assignment is ridiculous I saw some serious primadonnas while interviewing who declined to do a simple 15-30 minutes on-site coding challenge because they have extensive github or whatever they told me. Needless to say those candidates didn't got hired.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  While I rather like "Pri madonna", it's originally simple Italian for "first lady": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_donna
  - Arkaad 9y ago
    So what?
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Why even ask for resumes if you're going to ignore them? I also get very annoyed when people ask about your experience, then in the very next breath pretend none of it matters and you should do fizzbuzz. If we as an industry don't trust/value the stated experience of others, why do we continue to ask for it? Maybe tech companies should just stop accepting resumes then?
  - hvidgaard 9y ago
    FizzBuzz is a great way to see if the dev experience listed is total bullshit.
    - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
      yeah like that one company asking me to do Slack to work at their inventory management startup ;-) Totally related, in so many ways.
    - bphogan 9y ago
      Not sure about that. FizzBuzz is an interview question you just expect. RosettaCode has every FizzBuzz solution out there. Tons of people know how to FizzBuzz. This is just "learning enough to pass the test" - a canned answer like the one you know you have for "How do you deal with multiple simultaneous high priority projects?" or "What's your biggest weakness?" You may be filtering out lazy lazy candidates with FizzBuzz. But just because they can do it doesn't mean they can ship code.
smacktoward 9y ago
I interviewed with one company whose approach to this was smarter than most: they gave me a little problem to solve, but paid me a couple hundred bucks as compensation for the time I'd need to put into it. That took the sting out of having to do a homework assignment on my own time. I suppose the main objection to that would be "but we'd end up paying out so much money to people we don't hire!", but that feels to me like it says more about that company's recruiting process. Just wait until you're serious about potentially hiring somebody before you bust out the homework assignments and you're fine.
- janpieterz 9y ago
  Was going to comment with this. I think homework assignments can work great, but compensation for the time seems totally logical, and it should somewhat be in the area of reasonable too, not just a 'spend 20 hours but get 200 bucks' either.
- listentojohan 9y ago
  Also incentivise the company to select a problem that is related to the actual work that they do / need done.
malaporte 9y ago
We started doing challenges like this in our hiring process some years ago. Our challenges are open-ended so the time spent on it really is up to the applicant, but you can come up with a good solution in a few hours. The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions. Note that we give such challenges to candidates after they passed through a phone screen and a first interview with a pair of engineers.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"The feedback from candidates (including those we didn't hire) has been extremely good - they much prefer this to puzzles or whiteboard coding sessions." This whole idea of asking people do use up their nights and weekends to do free work is completely ridiculous. And the justification is always the same - "we think its better than implementing algorithms on whiteboards." Well who ever said writing code on a whiteboard was necessary? This justification is ridiculous as it suggests there are just two possibilities for hiring people - algorithmic puzzles and unpaid work.
  - pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
    I would just make a short on-site, and not waste more of the time. It's super simple ;-)
  - philjohn 9y ago
    This is why it needs to be a challenge related to the employer, but not an actual feature they're going to go and use. At my last place we used one, said "please don't spend more than 5 hours on it" - it was a challenge to read a specific industry format (e.g. test you can go and find something to read it, not implement a library to do so ... not reinventing the wheel) and present it in a basic RESTful web app (testing that you know what REST is, and can implement basic CRUD). Never had an issue getting it done, and it was very illuminating, some people who passed through the initial interview with flying colours turned in absolute crap.
    - 9y ago
duiker101 9y ago
I'd rather spend 20 hours in a weekend doing an homework like this than inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard. At least I can actually show that I know something other than just sweating and look really dumb.
- pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
  Last time I was hiring an iOS dev, we had a cool 2 hour pairing session (it was supposed to be 1 hour, but time flies when you're having fun), doing something really simple in the scope of the project. He shown how he works, and tackles problems, answered some questions, got hired. You really can hire in a humane way, you just need to want it.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Pair programming tests are fair because the company is investing the same time as candidate, just like any interview. Asking candidates to do tests on their own time is rude and dumb.
  - protonfish 9y ago
    If it's worth your time, its worth my time. I am happy to do any interview testing and activities as long it is on location. Any "homework" longer than an hour or so is disproportionally a burden on the candidate. I feel it is unethical and a dealbreaker for me.
- macca321 9y ago
  Except when you deliver the homework, working, with tests, and then you receive a rejection with incorrect bikesheddy feedback , or even worse, no feedback at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kintalo 9y ago
    What's wrong with that? If they leave feedback people can argue and claim it's invalid. Interviewing at a company isn't a free mentoring resource.
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Why do recruiters do these silly "homeworks" It's not the recruiters, they are just the messenger. But yeah this is a joke.
- tnolet 9y ago
  If the challenge feels like "silly homework" then something is clearly wrong, but completing challenges during an application process if very, very necessary. I've been in a couple of "hiring manager" roles and many times the challenge completely exposed under par developers with otherwise interesting cv's. Sloppy code, beginner mistakes etc. It's maybe a sign of the times where hiring managers need to actively test whether someone is propping up their CV with stuff or is actually knowledgeable. I wish it were different, but alas it is not.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Your challenges are biasing and filtering results in ways you aren't aware of.
kayoone 9y ago
As developers we are really fortunate that we often don't have to put up with this shit, but i have some designer friends (mostly fashion) where the job market isn't nearly as good and they have to go through shit like this all the time, because there is just no alternative. In those cases, if you don't agree with those weekend projects, you will most likely just not get a job because someone else will do it. If you ask for compensation for your time you will most likely hear a mad laugh and a "Nope"
ngcazz 9y ago
You can't come out of it knowing any less, I think I'd mostly be happy to do it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 9y ago
I bet doctors don't have to do "surgery challenges" or "whiteboard anatomy pop quizzes" in order to get hired at a new hospital. What is it that their industry is doing that software engineering is not? This is a rhetorical question--we all know what they are doing, but everyone here's usually against it.
- segmondy 9y ago
  Doctors go through heavy schooling, residency. Do you know how many hours they work a week while in residency? Don't even compare.

jackvalentine 9y ago

I'd be interested to read that employment contract.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jaymzcampbell 9y ago

This behaviour just further adds to my list of reasons I will not trust any company no matter how cool they might try to act. A company is ultimately only interested in itself. It's not your friend. The fact this guy was moving country just makes it even more disgusting.

latch 9y ago

As a layperson, I'm surprised this is legal. First and foremost, why wouldn't you be entitled to whatever notice/pay your employment contract stipulates? Even in an at-will environment, I imagine if the contract says the employer must give you 4 weeks of notice, well, that's what they owe you. Furthermore, at some point, hiring people that you have good reason to suspect you won't be able to employ must become fraudulent, no? I'd talk to a lawyer unless the contract was never signed.

YorickPeterse 9y ago
Typically in the EU (or at least here in The Netherlands) you can be fired on the spot (without a notice ahead of time) in the first month (usually referred to as a "trial month"). I suspect this is what SoundCloud took advantage of.
- Jakob 9y ago
  That’s Netherland-specific. EU countries have very different probationary period terms. In Germany you have at least 2 weeks notice during the probation period which is usually six months long. OP should ask a lawyer. I think this is not legal.
  - alex_duf 9y ago
    It's the same in France as well, you can be fired any time the first four months, no reason needed. Equally you can also leave any time you want if you don't like the job.
    - rasjani 9y ago
      Same in Finland.
    - oh_sigh 9y ago
      So normally, you can't leave a job you don't like after 1 month? What is the process for quitting like? Here in the US, I've only ever seen '2 weeks notice' be a courtesy - you could just stop coming to work, or announce that the current day is your last.

hardwaresofton 9y ago

Maybe the empathy is misplaced, but this seems like 90% of airing of the dirty laundry of Soundcloud and 10% of asking if anyone is looking for someone to hire. I think you could have done the latter without throwing Soundcloud under the bus _too much_. Yes, they screwed you out of what was an accepted job offer, and you should definitely do everything in your power to get anything that was owed to you, after carefully reading the employment contract and researching your rights, however I'm sure that CTO (and the company as a whole) is not having a great time either. There was already cause for some reservations given the bad press that was circling the company... Shit happens.

hvidgaard 9y ago
Part of me is saying that while the guy was screwed over by SoundCloud, he simply didn't cover his bases in the contract. There is simply no way I'd sign a contract that requires me to quit my job, let my accomodation go, move to a different country, without some clause about compensation for termination. It may seem obvious now, but I always require 3 months of pay from the last day of employment - this is in effect from the moment they sign the contract, so they can cancel it all they want, but they still have to pay me 3 months of salery. If they don't want to sign on that, I don't consider it a serious offer anyway. This is only for jobs in a city where the jobs are plenty. For moving to Berlin it'd have to be higher.
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  I agree, but I think it is incredibly uncommon for people to think critically about employment contracts in Tech. People generally just take whatever "standard" contract they receive at whatever small-mid-large size company, and I would guess that most don't even read them all the way through. Even as someone who likes to think that they consider contracts carefully, I recently signed a contract with a 12-month (!!!) non complete cause. Clearly I don't think critically enough about employment contracts either. It's so hard to know things like this without experience, and there aren't enough people spreading (this kind) of knowledge.
  - 9y ago

asteinbr 9y ago

I can't imagine that you don't get any compensation. Germany has good rights for employees. I would contact an attorney for employment law. Maybe you can get something. I mean you are in a very unpleasant situation. All the best for you.

Jdam 9y ago
It's not legal. I looked this up when I joined my company (in Berlin) last year. Even if you don't sign anything but the recruiter says/writes that you will be hired, this is already regarded as an "Absicht" (Intention) and they have to compensate you for some time. Get a lawyer to sort this out. Will be worth it.
- degenerate 9y ago
  Would he need a German or US lawyer? Or is the general practice to get a local lawyer and let them handle all the cross-border details?
  - MatthewWilkes 9y ago
    The contract almost certainly specifies that the choice of law will be German law. Either way, it seems the author is based in Prague currently, so I'm not sure how US law would figure into it.
    - degenerate 9y ago
      I thought SoundCloud was a US company?
      - pyroinferno 9y ago
        Soundcloud is a German company. Also, if a American company is operating in Germany they follow German laws. That is why he would need a German lawyer.

sheeshkebab 9y ago

It’s bad, but not as bad as a making an offer to someone (me), having that someone leave the country to finalize get the work visa and finalize the move, and then cancelling the offer. That was not cool. Oh good old times when I ‘trusted’ these mother fucking companies.

Sorreah 9y ago

Having been in a similar situation myself I can sympathize. And knowing companies just get away with it helps you realize that you should never ever feel any loyalty towards an employer, potential or current.

pawelkomarnicki 9y ago
Oh you're entering house of pain believing "companies are loyal" ;-) Definitely NOT in Berlin.

michaelt 9y ago

Early in my career, I thought I was always doing someone a favour by making them a job offer. After all, I'm just giving them more options to choose between, right? Later I learned people who end up out of a job won't see it that way. Especially if they've quit a secure job and relocated. In my case I was on the fence about a guy I interviewed, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, it didn't work out and I had to fire him. Hiring someone just as you're about to have big layoffs is even worse, as the blame isn't shared - it's all on the employer. Now when I hire, I do everything I can to avoid this sort of mistake :)

jakub_g 9y ago

Honestly this is what scares me about moving countries to join startups and small companies (and even established companies). It doesn't help that I have 3 months notice at current job - plenty of time for the company to dissolve the contract. In fact, a friend of mine did the very same thing (wanted to move to a Berlin startup two years ago) and also he was terminated before he arrived. Don't know how the financial side of the issue was solved though. Regarding the notice period, regulations probably differ by country, AFAIK in some countries notice is period is gradually increasing, i.e. on day 1 it's measured in days, not in weeks/months. That complicates things a lot. When you move countries, the company is in much more comfortable position for the first few weeks.

ghaff 9y ago
There's always a "grass in greener" risk for all sorts of reasons. And that risk is almost certainly amplified for companies that are smaller/less well-established/on rocky financial ground/etc. And, of course, relocating magnifies the effect of those risks even more. Not to say you should never voluntarily change jobs of course. But I've known a lot of people over the years who have basically hopped from a stable position with some degree of dissatisfaction into something that just didn't work out from which it took a fair bit of time and effort to recover.

bambax 9y ago

And now this has been flagged? Why??? HN should really implement some kind of system where flagged posts would be listed, together with a reason (and maybe, why not, an appeals process).

mynewtb 9y ago
And a way to vouch for posts, just like you can for comments.
- detaro 9y ago
  You can vouch once something has become [dead], the difference between posts and comments is that posts have the additional state where [flagged] shows but they are not [dead] yet.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    How much karma do you need to vouch?
enraged_camel 9y ago
IMO it should show you the list of users who flagged it, so you can clearly see who might have an agenda. edit: I don't suggest this lightly. Flagging is not the same as voting. It carries enormous weight and can outright kill submissions. Because of that, IMO the usernames of flaggers should be public.
Gigablah 9y ago
I'm surprised it's still on the front page despite the flagging, maybe HN did change something.

bitcharmer 9y ago

Sadly this scenario is not uncommon even among bigger employers. I was with a big investment bank abroad when after a few rounds of redundancies that I somehow managed to survive over the few months I was with them, we were finally told the situation was now stable and we have lots of work planned for the next few years. Hooray. Tell wife, terminate nursery contracts for our kids in our country of origin, arrange moving our stuff to the country I was working in for good, commit to renting a new apartment for the next 12 months, buy airline tickets and lots of other expenses. Then I get the news. The remaining few people are being let go. No apology, no compensation. Just like that. To some degree it's a game of luck, I guess, but I've been actively refusing their offers ever since. Fool me once...

erikb 9y ago
I hope so much that as many people as possible read your story. Don't trust the word of people who profit from your trust. Don't bet your whole family on your boss.
- seasonalgrit 9y ago
  Agreed. This is part of why it's important to attend to one's own financial security -- if one doesn't have a safety fund (6 months of living expenses minimum) that should be number one priority. makes all the difference when navigating employment transitions. I also really liked the suggestion elsewhere in the comments to negotiate in the offer letter/contract 3 months of pay after the last day of work. I haven't tried that but it's something I'll consider in the future.
  - jorvi 9y ago
    The 'six months of living expenses minimum' plus 'fridge+car+laundry machine' fund get touted around a lot, but they ignore the reality that, while living expenses have only been going up, pay has stagnated. Most families are barely scraping by with only ~€300 a month leeway. Assuming €3000 living expenses a month and a combined income of ~€3500 (removing ~€200 a month for random expenses that always pop up), saving €18.000 would take 5 years assuming absolutely nothing bad happens in the mean time. Add to that the fridge+car+laundry fund and some bad luck, and you're looking at 8-10 years of no-fun-expenses-allowed saving. As one would say: get real.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

mynewtb 9y ago

Why is this flagged?

076ae80a-3c97-4 9y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that someone at SoundCloud didn't like this appearing on Hacker News.

soci 9y ago

> In the evening, I finally received a response from the recruiter. She was on the sick leave without knowing any details about the situation. She forwarded me to her manager. It's very likely the recruiter was laid off too.

stevefan1999 9y ago

long story a little bit short with details 1. OP quit his original job and applied for SoundCloud 2. OP passed the code challenge and interview and was recruited, its quite positive 3. OP is about to relocate to Berlin but 4. SoundCloud then announced the layoff and OP was one of them! Just before his contract is going to be activated 5. OP is now unemployed, alone in Berlin, frightened and hopeless

mkane89 9y ago

WHY on earth is this FLAGGED!? it is important to draw attention to acts of gross negligence, like this hiring at soundcloud, so that companies (1) see the impacts of such irresponsible behavior and hopefully do not repeat something like it (2) find help for him to get back on his feet immediately. i am a current soundclouder (iOS developer) but was not part of the interview process for him. i can vouch that the situation was awful well before he got the offer, and they mislead him. the hiring should have stopped long ago, and soundcloud has put peoples' lives off course in the short/medium term because of their reckless hiring when they were running out of money. shameful

mkane89 9y ago
hacker news has once again shown itself to prioritize being a home for trolls more than a legitimate news forum that helps the community
- randomerr 9y ago
  Welcome to a democratic voting systems. What people see as the new shiny is what get voted in.
  - mkane89 9y ago
    ew, if only we can turn around the bro + gossip culture and actually focus on important things for once in this industry
BlackjackCF 9y ago
Probably some folks at Soundcloud who are salty...

peternicky 9y ago

I know this story takes place in EU but just FYI, this would be an unfortunate but completely legal situation in USA.

tootie 9y ago
Their CTO is 6 months on the job and moved to Germany for the job. He quite possibly doesn't understand EU law. He also seems to have inherited a shit sandwich and is being forced to eat it.

jbapple 9y ago

The CTO who made the phone call appears to be Artem Fishman: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/soundcloud-co-founder-takes-product-role-yahoo-alum-steps-in-as-cto/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/soundcloud-co-founder-take...

Clubber 9y ago

So I believe the CTO referred to in the article is Artem Fishman from Yahoo based on this article: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-co-founder-eric-wahlforss-switches-role-as-it-hires-cto/ https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-co-founder...

southphillyman 9y ago

Very unfortunate and hopefully there is a way for the victim to be compensated. I once worked at a financial instituion where they hired a bunch of contractors for a project which didn't have an approved budget. Somehow the budget was never approved and after a week or two all of the contractors were let go. Many of them moved from several states away and left previous jobs. I guess there is an increased level of risk if you're a contractor but I still thought it was pretty callous to hire 15+ people from all over the country if the budget wasn't a stone cold lock for approval.

willyyr 9y ago

You should definitely consult a lawyer as i'm guessing you have a german contract. Even if you haven't started but signed everything you have something called trial period (Probezeit) which has at least a two weeks notice for termination.

DoubleGlazing 9y ago

I used to work as a developer in a logistics firm. For a short while it was going through some financial difficulties. It was no secret among the staff, many of whom were jumping ship. Those that weren't (myself included) were making plans to do the same. Despite this the MD insisted on keeping the recruitment process going and carrying through with the graduate recruitment scheme. His reasoning was that he couldn't claim that his company was growing if it wasn't hiring. It was deception plain and simple, but for this particular MD morals were merely something he had once heard about. Come the hour they did have to withdraw firm offers for both experienced hires and five graduates. It was particularly nasty for the graduates as they went through a ridiculously extensive recruitment process - including spending a weekend away at a woodland activity centre where they were forced to do team building exercises and climb a mountain in the dark. Long story short, they kept the recruitment process going to make it look like the company was doing better than it was. It was brutal, but the MD didn't care. He was probably more worried about where his next Merc was coming from.

redm 9y ago
Sad story for the new hires. A couple of thoughts: Large companies fail too in much the same way so I'm not sure how much "startup" specific this is. Businesses that are struggling may continue operations as normal, including recruitment, while they seek additional funding or some other inflection point. Companies are often transparent when the times are good and much less so when struggling. It's self-preservation. If they say were in big trouble, the top talent leaves first. It's manifest destiny. So, they put their heads down and try to steer the company through it. It's a terrible situation all around when a business fails, everyone loses.
paradite 9y ago
I think you accidentally or intentionally revealed your location by mentioning "woodland".
jerrylives 9y ago
Reminds me of my recent interview with Buzzfeed for a SRE position. It consisted of * A half hour introductory call with the recruiter * Another half hour call with an engineer about the position * An hour-long technical phone interview * Eight hour onsite technical interview * Coming back in for a final interview with the product manager and then a "work party" where I had to show a "lead" how to do regexes because he couldn't figure them out (this dude had been working there for four years) So I did all that - including missing a day of work and thus pay - and was told that I was the first person who actually made it through the whole process. I then asked if that meant I'd be receiving an offer / moving forward and they said no, because the team was "Still figuring out the interview process" and that in the future they would be sure to think of me. I reached out about possible remuneration, because I had already given almost 20 hours of my time to them as well as actionable expertise. Still haven't heard back.

Danihan 9y ago

This is disgusting behavior from Soundcloud upper management, they need to be held liable for breach of contract. How could upper management be allowing recruiting at the same time they are planning massive layoffs. Ridiculous.

falsedan 9y ago
This is completely fine business decision-making. The only feedback that matters to people who make these sorts of decisions is money, so the only effective action to take here is: 1. contact a lawyer who specialises in workplace law & sue; 2. unionise and strike.

valuearb 9y ago

Don't give 20 hours of your life to a programming excercise for a job application, unless they are compensating you. If your new employer sets your start date 7 weeks in the future, keep interviewing. You don't have a job yet. I recently signed an offer letter with a firm that required a drug and background screen and a start date 2 weeks out. So knowing i didn't actually have a job yet, I kept interviewing, received two more job offers, and took the best one. i called the first company the friday before my monday start and told them i wasn't coming in.

rezashirazian 9y ago
I personally enjoy programming exercises and have no problem spending a few hours tackling these types of problems. However I'd refuse to do it for free if it's obviously something they're going to use in their product or if it's something that takes 20 hours to complete.

expertentipp 9y ago

OP got screwed eastern European style. Over here we have short sides of all three sticks: no job security, miserable salaries, and non existent social support. What's infuriating for me personally is that managers deciding to fire oftentimes are employed themselves by a subsidiary in a country with high job security (e.g. Germany, Sweden), playing with the EU's free movement of workers in a very nasty and exploitive manner.

FormerSClouder 9y ago

The OP should be happy. He may have dodged a bullet on work environment. Shady is as shady does.