5 ms·

What does your post have to do with the OP? The company in question is asking for someone to do actual work that they will use as part of the job interview, an

What does your post have to do with the OP? The company in question is asking for someone to do actual work that they will use as part of the job interview, and then to work for free for 3 months, "non-negotiable". You somehow think that is reasonable, and that anyone on HN who complains about it is simply whiny?

reikonomusha 9y ago
There have been a good number of posts on HN as of recent about hiring, interviewing, etc. Generally, the post lands, and many folks on HN come out of the woodwork to criticize the method or approach negatively. The same happened with this post. (Of course I think in this case the behavior is exploitative and abusive. But do notice that not all folks in the thread disagree with the practice. Unfortunately they’re getting downvoted for disagreeing.)
apetresc 9y ago
You either didn't read the post, or you are taking their informal problem statement ("our frontend will call your endpoint [..]") WAY too literally. Hint: their frontend will NOT actually be calling your endpoint. They will probably never even run your endpoint once. It's just a way to describe where in the flow they want you to plug into. They want an HTTP endpoint that takes a file over POST. Then they want an HTTP endpoint that returns the list of files over GET. They would also like basic things like a way to take an auth token to check if you have permission to upload, some unit testing, etc. If you think this is anywhere even near to the ballpark of "actual work that they will use in their product", you're insane. This is basically 95% Django boilerplate that an experienced Django dev would be able to type out faster than it takes me to write this comment. To suggest that "write and read a .jpg" is somehow a part of their system that they're outsourcing (rather than the kind of thing you can find written out in dozens of Stack Overflow answers) is absurd.
- obstacle1 9y ago
  I think it's a) really bizarre how invested you are in defending this obviously exploitative process -- do real work for us and then work for free for 3 months, sure, all the Django devs line up, it's easy game; and b) ridiculous the extent to which you are minimizing the requirements of the exercise. It's a code screen -- reasonable is making sure the candidate can write code, not that the candidate ships you a full stack functional product with a test suite and design pattern justification document. What is insane is trying to justify this with "its ok Django is basically magic lol". I don't think we have anything further to productively discuss.
  - jarvuschris 9y ago
    I'm with apetresc, describing this as a "full stack functional product" is absurd if you really understand what's being asked for. The company and product might be stupid, and the unpaid offer shit, but as far as reasonable and effective ways to hire people goes asking someone to scaffold out a frameworked app and add a couple endpoints should be quick and is a great way to assess their judgement and attention to detail. I don't know about apetresc but I'm vested in that being a good way to assess candidates, and think you're doing the world a disservice discouraging people from it just because you don't like the company/product/offer it's for.
    - lovich 9y ago
      Its for an _internship. At what point does anyone think a good test for someone who has years of experience doing the actual job, would be an equally good test for someone who is expected to have literally no experience? The only way that would make sense is if you are the type of company that advertises for entry level jobs with 7 years experience, which is to say that you are trying to get senior work for junior pay. In this case it looks like they took it a step further to senior work for no pay
- astura 9y ago
  >experienced Django dev They are looking for an intern.
  - apetresc 9y ago
    It sounds like you guys don't know what the intern market looks like. A significant percentage of students entering my University in first year have multiple significant side projects under their belt before the first day of class. We then all do 6 internships of 4 months at each company before graduation. If a company in San Francisco wants an intern who knows how to build a POST endpoint, believe me, that is not an unrealistic ask.
    - astura 9y ago
      Since I very frequently interview interns and was one myself (~15 years ago) I certainly know what the intern market looks like. Whereas it sounds like you're a college student, as you said "we do internships," not "we did internships." Interns are not expected nor required to have any experience. You're being entirely unreasonable if you're looking for experienced interns. If you're friends were so experienced already that they could land an entry level job by 18 then why did they go to college at all? BTW, in the context of a job posting, "experience," means "professional experience," not "I threw together some shitty code one weekend in high school."

reikonomusha 9y ago

There have been a good number of posts on HN as of recent about hiring, interviewing, etc. Generally, the post lands, and many folks on HN come out of the woodwork to criticize the method or approach negatively. The same happened with this post. (Of course I think in this case the behavior is exploitative and abusive. But do notice that not all folks in the thread disagree with the practice. Unfortunately they’re getting downvoted for disagreeing.)

apetresc 9y ago

You either didn't read the post, or you are taking their informal problem statement ("our frontend will call your endpoint [..]") WAY too literally. Hint: their frontend will NOT actually be calling your endpoint. They will probably never even run your endpoint once. It's just a way to describe where in the flow they want you to plug into. They want an HTTP endpoint that takes a file over POST. Then they want an HTTP endpoint that returns the list of files over GET. They would also like basic things like a way to take an auth token to check if you have permission to upload, some unit testing, etc. If you think this is anywhere even near to the ballpark of "actual work that they will use in their product", you're insane. This is basically 95% Django boilerplate that an experienced Django dev would be able to type out faster than it takes me to write this comment. To suggest that "write and read a .jpg" is somehow a part of their system that they're outsourcing (rather than the kind of thing you can find written out in dozens of Stack Overflow answers) is absurd.

obstacle1 9y ago
I think it's a) really bizarre how invested you are in defending this obviously exploitative process -- do real work for us and then work for free for 3 months, sure, all the Django devs line up, it's easy game; and b) ridiculous the extent to which you are minimizing the requirements of the exercise. It's a code screen -- reasonable is making sure the candidate can write code, not that the candidate ships you a full stack functional product with a test suite and design pattern justification document. What is insane is trying to justify this with "its ok Django is basically magic lol". I don't think we have anything further to productively discuss.
- jarvuschris 9y ago
  I'm with apetresc, describing this as a "full stack functional product" is absurd if you really understand what's being asked for. The company and product might be stupid, and the unpaid offer shit, but as far as reasonable and effective ways to hire people goes asking someone to scaffold out a frameworked app and add a couple endpoints should be quick and is a great way to assess their judgement and attention to detail. I don't know about apetresc but I'm vested in that being a good way to assess candidates, and think you're doing the world a disservice discouraging people from it just because you don't like the company/product/offer it's for.
  - lovich 9y ago
    Its for an _internship. At what point does anyone think a good test for someone who has years of experience doing the actual job, would be an equally good test for someone who is expected to have literally no experience? The only way that would make sense is if you are the type of company that advertises for entry level jobs with 7 years experience, which is to say that you are trying to get senior work for junior pay. In this case it looks like they took it a step further to senior work for no pay
astura 9y ago
>experienced Django dev They are looking for an intern.
- apetresc 9y ago
  It sounds like you guys don't know what the intern market looks like. A significant percentage of students entering my University in first year have multiple significant side projects under their belt before the first day of class. We then all do 6 internships of 4 months at each company before graduation. If a company in San Francisco wants an intern who knows how to build a POST endpoint, believe me, that is not an unrealistic ask.
  - astura 9y ago
    Since I very frequently interview interns and was one myself (~15 years ago) I certainly know what the intern market looks like. Whereas it sounds like you're a college student, as you said "we do internships," not "we did internships." Interns are not expected nor required to have any experience. You're being entirely unreasonable if you're looking for experienced interns. If you're friends were so experienced already that they could land an entry level job by 18 then why did they go to college at all? BTW, in the context of a job posting, "experience," means "professional experience," not "I threw together some shitty code one weekend in high school."