5 ms·

I don't want to name names but one YC company I interviewed at left me with the distinct impression that they talked a big game, just to get me to work on one o

I don't want to name names but one YC company I interviewed at left me with the distinct impression that they talked a big game, just to get me to work on one of their (apparently) "strictly-hiring-related toy projects" as homework. Homework, "sure", except it: 1) integrated with a real system, 2) mirrored something they actually did, and 3) they would only agree to proceed if I signed an IP/work contract and accepted their (sorry, too small) payment of USD450 for the (not insignificant) project. I pushed back at the contract, and asked them to ask their lawyer if that was really necessary. When they insisted on a contract for the homework project I pulled out of the process. It just felt so wrong. The worst part, is not that they would seek some way to freelance a small part of their system, nor that they would actually use ideas from hiring interviews in their product -- but that (it seems) they would so blatantly lie to someone they professed to want to hire that this was homework, when in fact it was not. Even worse was the feeling of disrespect that they wanted to freelance part of their system for USD450, trying to abuse the hiring process/ talking a big game about offers, to unfairly lowball the price. Like they are a well funded, established, largish YC alum, at least they can afford to pay market. Anyway, everytime I see "XXXX is hiring a YYYY in ZZZZ" on here from them, I'm reminded. Feels good to vent. Just sad. Anyway, I'm not going to name names because this is unwise to do that in a public forum. Anyway, I only added the above anecdote after writing the following comment. This is why Triplebyte is so good. You do a single technical interview ( after a quick online quiz ), then get fast tracked to final interviews at various YC / silicon valley startups. Sure, maybe not everyone wants to work for a smallish startup. But some of their clients are 200+ people. So...it's not all the same.

collyw 8y ago
I have noticed a trend of not naming companies here. Is it against the rules? I fell that we should name and shame companies that are disrespectful of peoples time.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  I don't believe I agree. Every story has two sides and I'm just not sure this is the forum to lay that all out in.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
    If not here, where? There's no other forum where it will be easier to hear both sides of the story, naming a name on HN is probably the best place to name names because it's pretty likely to actually get hashed out in the comments.
    - dosycorp 8y ago
      There perhaps now is another forum because I made it ( actually reused some old code ), after reading these comments. But it's not a forum. More like a very simple database with elastic search. I'm replying you because you seemed interested in this. Hope this is useful somehow, the HN post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  It’s a chilling effect caused by overzealous moderation. When Coinbase first launched, someone was having issues getting funds out of there. That person made a thread on HN, and the response has always been “HN is not a support forum for YC companies” by the moderation team.
- gravyboat 8y ago
  I've had multiple comments detached (as you can see by my comment history) for calling out companies that suck to apply for in the monthly hiring threads. Either the people who posted must have complained so they removed it, or HN doesn't want people to know some companies suck to deal with when it comes to hiring process.
  - collyw 8y ago
    Would Reddit be more open to something like this as in could you create a subreddit and remind HN readers to check? I see a few people seem interested in the idea of naming such companies. I have wasted a few weekends worth of my time (which at freelance rates is a decent amount of money) and have been ignored when I asked for feedback (sometimes just ignored completely). Its disrespectful and companies should be called out for it. I could name at least one one company that regularly posts in the hiring threads here.
  - meesterdude 8y ago
    Don't let the HN censorship discourage you. Name them and shame them!
    - gravyboat 8y ago
      I will continue doing so in the monthly hiring thread when I have the time.
    - dosycorp 8y ago
      I'm still undecided about the best option for these situations, but I made this ( simple ) site as an experimental database of people's hiring experiences, and posted to HN. I'm letting you know because you cared about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
  - dosycorp 8y ago
    I made a place that is not moderated by HN, where you can share your experiences of applying. It's called hirepwned.xyz and that's the domain name. Just wanted to let you know because you were passionate about this. The HN post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
- walshemj 8y ago
  yes I think we need a database of bad actors here
  - dosycorp 8y ago
    And it is done. Pretty simple (beanstalk / elasticsearch, no sessions): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 Hope you find this database useful.
- dosycorp 8y ago
  After these comments, I made a site where you can share you experiences: hirepwned.xyz -- There's no rule against not naming companies.
danpalmer 8y ago
I don't want to pass judgement on your coding exercise, and it certainly seems fishy with the contract, however... I would point out that on the hiring side, evaluating a submitted project in a way that can differentiate between good and great candidates, and that the reviewers can understand well enough to get the signal they need, is very difficult. Because of this, I know several times we have asked candidates to build a simplified version of something that we have already built internally, where we understand the problem space deeply. We only ever do something we have already built, as that's the whole point, and we typically simplify it, although that might not be obvious from the outside. We also cap the time at 1-3 hours depending on the task as we care about evaluating the candidate, not getting a complete/usable/production ready solution, and so that it's not dependent on how much time a particular candidate can spend on the problem, which would introduce biases. This isn't perfect, and we try not to do this, and to use problems that are obviously toy problems, but sometimes it's necessary.
- hvidgaard 8y ago
  That is fine, just be upfront about it. Still require a contract for it is reeking of trying to get work for "free". If you have it running in production, and use it because you understand it thoroughly, it shouldn't matter what the candidate comes up with. Any new insight he might bring you can always incorporate with your own code. In any case none of the code is expected to be used in production, and if it turns out you want to, it's probably the candidate you want to hire anyway.
  - gowld 8y ago
    > Any new insight he might bring you can always incorporate with your own code Only if the contract is signed.
    - hvidgaard 8y ago
      If you want to use the candidates code, then you have to have a signed contract. Nothing prevents you from looking at the code, and write your own version of it.
the-pigeon 8y ago
I think they did you a favor because if that's how they treat a candidate you don't want to know how they treat employees.
meesterdude 8y ago
> Anyway, I'm not going to name names because this is unwise to do that in a public forum. Why not? create a throwaway if its a matter of coming back to you. Otherwise we really need to name and shame these companies if we have any hope of getting the practices to improve. Sunlight is a great disinfectant!
- dosycorp 8y ago
  Or create a site/database. To throw sunlight on it maybe? Ok, I created it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 I'm replying you because you were interested in this ( or seemed to be ).

collyw 8y ago

I have noticed a trend of not naming companies here. Is it against the rules? I fell that we should name and shame companies that are disrespectful of peoples time.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I don't believe I agree. Every story has two sides and I'm just not sure this is the forum to lay that all out in.
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  If not here, where? There's no other forum where it will be easier to hear both sides of the story, naming a name on HN is probably the best place to name names because it's pretty likely to actually get hashed out in the comments.
  - dosycorp 8y ago
    There perhaps now is another forum because I made it ( actually reused some old code ), after reading these comments. But it's not a forum. More like a very simple database with elastic search. I'm replying you because you seemed interested in this. Hope this is useful somehow, the HN post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
ShabbosGoy 8y ago
It’s a chilling effect caused by overzealous moderation. When Coinbase first launched, someone was having issues getting funds out of there. That person made a thread on HN, and the response has always been “HN is not a support forum for YC companies” by the moderation team.
gravyboat 8y ago
I've had multiple comments detached (as you can see by my comment history) for calling out companies that suck to apply for in the monthly hiring threads. Either the people who posted must have complained so they removed it, or HN doesn't want people to know some companies suck to deal with when it comes to hiring process.
- collyw 8y ago
  Would Reddit be more open to something like this as in could you create a subreddit and remind HN readers to check? I see a few people seem interested in the idea of naming such companies. I have wasted a few weekends worth of my time (which at freelance rates is a decent amount of money) and have been ignored when I asked for feedback (sometimes just ignored completely). Its disrespectful and companies should be called out for it. I could name at least one one company that regularly posts in the hiring threads here.
- meesterdude 8y ago
  Don't let the HN censorship discourage you. Name them and shame them!
  - gravyboat 8y ago
    I will continue doing so in the monthly hiring thread when I have the time.
  - dosycorp 8y ago
    I'm still undecided about the best option for these situations, but I made this ( simple ) site as an experimental database of people's hiring experiences, and posted to HN. I'm letting you know because you cared about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
- dosycorp 8y ago
  I made a place that is not moderated by HN, where you can share your experiences of applying. It's called hirepwned.xyz and that's the domain name. Just wanted to let you know because you were passionate about this. The HN post is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043
walshemj 8y ago
yes I think we need a database of bad actors here
- dosycorp 8y ago
  And it is done. Pretty simple (beanstalk / elasticsearch, no sessions): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 Hope you find this database useful.
dosycorp 8y ago
After these comments, I made a site where you can share you experiences: hirepwned.xyz -- There's no rule against not naming companies.

danpalmer 8y ago

I don't want to pass judgement on your coding exercise, and it certainly seems fishy with the contract, however... I would point out that on the hiring side, evaluating a submitted project in a way that can differentiate between good and great candidates, and that the reviewers can understand well enough to get the signal they need, is very difficult. Because of this, I know several times we have asked candidates to build a simplified version of something that we have already built internally, where we understand the problem space deeply. We only ever do something we have already built, as that's the whole point, and we typically simplify it, although that might not be obvious from the outside. We also cap the time at 1-3 hours depending on the task as we care about evaluating the candidate, not getting a complete/usable/production ready solution, and so that it's not dependent on how much time a particular candidate can spend on the problem, which would introduce biases. This isn't perfect, and we try not to do this, and to use problems that are obviously toy problems, but sometimes it's necessary.

hvidgaard 8y ago
That is fine, just be upfront about it. Still require a contract for it is reeking of trying to get work for "free". If you have it running in production, and use it because you understand it thoroughly, it shouldn't matter what the candidate comes up with. Any new insight he might bring you can always incorporate with your own code. In any case none of the code is expected to be used in production, and if it turns out you want to, it's probably the candidate you want to hire anyway.
- gowld 8y ago
  > Any new insight he might bring you can always incorporate with your own code Only if the contract is signed.
  - hvidgaard 8y ago
    If you want to use the candidates code, then you have to have a signed contract. Nothing prevents you from looking at the code, and write your own version of it.

the-pigeon 8y ago

I think they did you a favor because if that's how they treat a candidate you don't want to know how they treat employees.

meesterdude 8y ago

> Anyway, I'm not going to name names because this is unwise to do that in a public forum. Why not? create a throwaway if its a matter of coming back to you. Otherwise we really need to name and shame these companies if we have any hope of getting the practices to improve. Sunlight is a great disinfectant!

dosycorp 8y ago
Or create a site/database. To throw sunlight on it maybe? Ok, I created it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16895043 I'm replying you because you were interested in this ( or seemed to be ).