6 ms·

Not to hijack this sub-thread, but just a general question: how does one deal with unethical 'homework projects'? I've had a case during an application where I

Not to hijack this sub-thread, but just a general question: how does one deal with unethical 'homework projects'? I've had a case during an application where I was given a 'homework project' that seemed to me very much not like a theoretical scenario, but more like the company wanting me to do free work for an actual real-world issue they had. Have people had situations where you suspected the same? How do you deal with it?

umvi 6y ago
If it were me I would be like: "here is proof I completed it and that it works, source code contingent on my being hired ;)"
- xedeon 6y ago
  I like the way you think!
temp667 6y ago
We give new hires a homework project that is directly work related. We don't consider it unethical. It's really a fantastic way to sort out who can deliver. We used to have it be part of the onsite interview - they could sit for a few hours and do it. I like these because they are not games. If you want something done, you'd ask an employee to do it. So just ask someone to do something you need done. In our case at least by the time it was something that was part of an interview, it had already been implemented on the business side. Our projects were usually 2 hours tops? The idea that this is unethical is wild. We also do paid internships and have folks actually work on stuff that way -> do a good job, pretty good line up for a full time position.
- jimhi 6y ago
  You are misunderstanding. They are saying it is unethical to ask an interviewee to code for free and use that in production. In your case you are not doing that, although if I interviewed with you and saw the same feature added after I submitted the code I would definitely assume you did something unethical.
  - temp667 6y ago
    But is that what is happening? They said it was a work related project. That's exactly what we do. Why would a place like google even use an interviewees code without careful copyright assignment and work for hire protections (ie, you need to pay someone in USA generally to own their code). I've found some potential hires are randomly paranoid - and if they start giving you lots of hypothetical disaster / ripoff scenarios early, not worth the hire?
    - jimhi 6y ago
      Sometimes companies do illegal things that save them money. I would assume Google wouldn't do that. Not every company is Google. A 6-person company in New York did that to me. I reviewed the interview project I did for them and their latest product update. I had to ask them a week after the interview if they used my code in production and if so - this is how many hours I worked on it and a fair rate. The CEO emailed me threatening legal action and then called me 10 minutes later apologizing and venmo'd me the amount I stated it was worth. If your interview process works for you that is great. But I could totally see why potential hires are paranoid if you are giving them a situation to be paranoid about. I hope you are being super clear with your process and giving assurance you aren't using their code. If it was me, I would show them the code our team wrote at the same time they submit their project and use that as part of the follow up interview.
- deleted 6y ago
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jdavis703 6y ago
This happened to me in am interview. It was my first software engineering job, so I was a junior. Wound up solving a problem one of the senior engineers had been struggling with for days. It’s probably what got me the job. Assuming the company is actually hiring for the role I think it’s perfectly fine to do this. It identifies people who can fill in gaps.
deleted 6y ago
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jeffparsons 6y ago
My employer deals with this by compensating candidates for their time. Y'know... with money. We also don't give them our actual problems as homework tasks. We'll occasionally talk about our real problems with candidates in interviews, but we're very clear about it when we do. It's not a perfect system. Some candidates will choose to spend longer on the task so that in the follow-up interview they'll have the opportunity to talk about stuff that really shows off their strengths, so their effective hourly compensation for doing it would be quite low. The task is explicitly flexible like this, and we've also hired people who spent _half_ the par time on it (e.g. life circumstances making spare hours hard to come by) and didn't implement much at all, but then were able to confidently answer our questions about the bits they didn't actually implement. Even if we were to only hire 1 out of every 15 people who get far enough through the pipeline to do the homework task (I don't recall the actual numbers) it costs us _nothing_ to compensate people for their time compared to, e.g., what it would cost us to make a bad hire. So it seems like an obvious thing to do even if only to stop candidates from having to wonder "am I getting screwed here?"
- dotBen 6y ago
  Doesn't this discriminates against people who are on visas who can't accept remuneration from anyone other than their current employers..? They then either have to do the same project for free or decline to continue the interview process.
  - simlevesque 6y ago
    Paying someone for their work isn't discrimination. It never is. The visa process may be flawed, but putting the blame on the employer is... weird.
  - smabie 6y ago
    or they can just take the money anyways and no one will know. besides, you can accept a gift in btc
  - johannes1234321 6y ago
    Not only visa, but also while employed one often can't simply be paid by a "competitor" for similar work, that would break the loyality to the current employer which is mandated by contract law and general low.
kgc 6y ago
When I give homework projects, they are extracted from a previous part of the interview: What is a personal project that you’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time to do? Then I just ask them to do that. Win / win.
VintageLight 6y ago
Some people don't like whiteboarding or timed pair programming because it's not close to a real-work environment. Some people don't like take-homes that replicate scenarios/projects because they think it's too close to real work and want to be paid instead! There's no pleasing everyone with interviewing processes.
dotBen 6y ago
Simple - you give candidates assignments you've designed solely for interviewing. Ones that you clearly state up front are not real, not based around current project deliverables and commit that the code will ever be used in production. Then it's no different to the rest of the candidate's time spent interviewing - it's cost of doing business that no one expects to be remunerated for. The other benefit is that you then keep a benchmark of deliverables by having each candidate complete the same task (you have to change tasks over time as the details of the project get leaked/discussed).
pc86 6y ago
We don't use homework projects at my current job (I don't care for them personally and thankfully have a bit of influence in the hiring process), but I've worked places that did. We always took real-world problems we had but had already solved. This has a couple benefits: a) we have full context around edge cases, bugs, historical stuff, etc. that the candidate doesn't; b) we can see pretty quickly when a candidate does something innovative we didn't think of and it's always lead to extremely good discussions in the interview; c) it's very similar to the work they'd be doing day-to-day, so if they have a lackluster resume and/or don't interview well, but shine on this, their odds of an offer skyrocket; d) the company gains nothing from the work so that settles most (but not all) of the ethical objections to it.
SMAAART 6y ago
It's pretty simple: the interviewing process goes both ways. The company interviews the candidate, the candidate interviews the company. If you feel that a request is unethical and it's not what you want in a company, well... you - as a candidate - can terminate the interviewing process.
tedk-42 6y ago
It's actually a good idea to pick a JIRA/project ticket from your backlog and see how the new engineer tries to solve the problem. It's good because it will determine if they're a good fit for the team and gauge how much they have to offer.
usr1106 6y ago
I had to solve a real world problem for my current employer in my assignment. However, when they usually say it takes 20% to make a nice demo and 80% to make a the demo production-ready, I'd say the distribution for my assignment was even more uneven. It's just a PoC, a toy, nothing that can really be used. I did not know the tools used, the coding style or anything when I coded the assignment. I see nothing unethical in it. 3 years later the feature has still not made it to production. I hate that every time it would have made my working day easier :)
stjohnswarts 6y ago
I just don't do them and move on to the next company. I've never had an issue landing my next gig. I'll do all day multi round interviews and white board questions. I'm not doing your work or taking a college exam again. Good luck and godspeed is all I can tell them.
deleted 6y ago
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Beefin 6y ago
I will only ever commit to a homework assignment if the employers' commitment level is on par. For example, if they want me to do a homework assignment before meeting the hiring manager, no way. In other words, the assignment CANNOT be the first gate otherwise companies will just spray and pray then find the most desperate candidates.
srcreigh 6y ago
Ubiq (YC company) interviewed me with an 8 hour assignment that had ridiculously challenging requirements. It was very fun because there was no way any normal human could do it in 8 hours... but how far could I get? And they paid me for 8 hours working on it. I felt this was good. I got paid and it was a fun challenge. It also obviously wasn't "actual work," but even if it was, I was getting paid, so why not? I don't think it would have been out of the question to say I was too busy to dedicate 8 hours either, but in my case I had the time. Overall it was an excellent experience.

umvi 6y ago

If it were me I would be like: "here is proof I completed it and that it works, source code contingent on my being hired ;)"

xedeon 6y ago
I like the way you think!

temp667 6y ago

We give new hires a homework project that is directly work related. We don't consider it unethical. It's really a fantastic way to sort out who can deliver. We used to have it be part of the onsite interview - they could sit for a few hours and do it. I like these because they are not games. If you want something done, you'd ask an employee to do it. So just ask someone to do something you need done. In our case at least by the time it was something that was part of an interview, it had already been implemented on the business side. Our projects were usually 2 hours tops? The idea that this is unethical is wild. We also do paid internships and have folks actually work on stuff that way -> do a good job, pretty good line up for a full time position.

jimhi 6y ago
You are misunderstanding. They are saying it is unethical to ask an interviewee to code for free and use that in production. In your case you are not doing that, although if I interviewed with you and saw the same feature added after I submitted the code I would definitely assume you did something unethical.
- temp667 6y ago
  But is that what is happening? They said it was a work related project. That's exactly what we do. Why would a place like google even use an interviewees code without careful copyright assignment and work for hire protections (ie, you need to pay someone in USA generally to own their code). I've found some potential hires are randomly paranoid - and if they start giving you lots of hypothetical disaster / ripoff scenarios early, not worth the hire?
  - jimhi 6y ago
    Sometimes companies do illegal things that save them money. I would assume Google wouldn't do that. Not every company is Google. A 6-person company in New York did that to me. I reviewed the interview project I did for them and their latest product update. I had to ask them a week after the interview if they used my code in production and if so - this is how many hours I worked on it and a fair rate. The CEO emailed me threatening legal action and then called me 10 minutes later apologizing and venmo'd me the amount I stated it was worth. If your interview process works for you that is great. But I could totally see why potential hires are paranoid if you are giving them a situation to be paranoid about. I hope you are being super clear with your process and giving assurance you aren't using their code. If it was me, I would show them the code our team wrote at the same time they submit their project and use that as part of the follow up interview.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

jdavis703 6y ago

This happened to me in am interview. It was my first software engineering job, so I was a junior. Wound up solving a problem one of the senior engineers had been struggling with for days. It’s probably what got me the job. Assuming the company is actually hiring for the role I think it’s perfectly fine to do this. It identifies people who can fill in gaps.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jeffparsons 6y ago

My employer deals with this by compensating candidates for their time. Y'know... with money. We also don't give them our actual problems as homework tasks. We'll occasionally talk about our real problems with candidates in interviews, but we're very clear about it when we do. It's not a perfect system. Some candidates will choose to spend longer on the task so that in the follow-up interview they'll have the opportunity to talk about stuff that really shows off their strengths, so their effective hourly compensation for doing it would be quite low. The task is explicitly flexible like this, and we've also hired people who spent _half_ the par time on it (e.g. life circumstances making spare hours hard to come by) and didn't implement much at all, but then were able to confidently answer our questions about the bits they didn't actually implement. Even if we were to only hire 1 out of every 15 people who get far enough through the pipeline to do the homework task (I don't recall the actual numbers) it costs us _nothing_ to compensate people for their time compared to, e.g., what it would cost us to make a bad hire. So it seems like an obvious thing to do even if only to stop candidates from having to wonder "am I getting screwed here?"

dotBen 6y ago
Doesn't this discriminates against people who are on visas who can't accept remuneration from anyone other than their current employers..? They then either have to do the same project for free or decline to continue the interview process.
- simlevesque 6y ago
  Paying someone for their work isn't discrimination. It never is. The visa process may be flawed, but putting the blame on the employer is... weird.
- smabie 6y ago
  or they can just take the money anyways and no one will know. besides, you can accept a gift in btc
- johannes1234321 6y ago
  Not only visa, but also while employed one often can't simply be paid by a "competitor" for similar work, that would break the loyality to the current employer which is mandated by contract law and general low.

kgc 6y ago

When I give homework projects, they are extracted from a previous part of the interview: What is a personal project that you’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time to do? Then I just ask them to do that. Win / win.

VintageLight 6y ago

Some people don't like whiteboarding or timed pair programming because it's not close to a real-work environment. Some people don't like take-homes that replicate scenarios/projects because they think it's too close to real work and want to be paid instead! There's no pleasing everyone with interviewing processes.

dotBen 6y ago

Simple - you give candidates assignments you've designed solely for interviewing. Ones that you clearly state up front are not real, not based around current project deliverables and commit that the code will ever be used in production. Then it's no different to the rest of the candidate's time spent interviewing - it's cost of doing business that no one expects to be remunerated for. The other benefit is that you then keep a benchmark of deliverables by having each candidate complete the same task (you have to change tasks over time as the details of the project get leaked/discussed).

pc86 6y ago

We don't use homework projects at my current job (I don't care for them personally and thankfully have a bit of influence in the hiring process), but I've worked places that did. We always took real-world problems we had but had already solved. This has a couple benefits: a) we have full context around edge cases, bugs, historical stuff, etc. that the candidate doesn't; b) we can see pretty quickly when a candidate does something innovative we didn't think of and it's always lead to extremely good discussions in the interview; c) it's very similar to the work they'd be doing day-to-day, so if they have a lackluster resume and/or don't interview well, but shine on this, their odds of an offer skyrocket; d) the company gains nothing from the work so that settles most (but not all) of the ethical objections to it.

SMAAART 6y ago

It's pretty simple: the interviewing process goes both ways. The company interviews the candidate, the candidate interviews the company. If you feel that a request is unethical and it's not what you want in a company, well... you - as a candidate - can terminate the interviewing process.

tedk-42 6y ago

It's actually a good idea to pick a JIRA/project ticket from your backlog and see how the new engineer tries to solve the problem. It's good because it will determine if they're a good fit for the team and gauge how much they have to offer.

usr1106 6y ago

I had to solve a real world problem for my current employer in my assignment. However, when they usually say it takes 20% to make a nice demo and 80% to make a the demo production-ready, I'd say the distribution for my assignment was even more uneven. It's just a PoC, a toy, nothing that can really be used. I did not know the tools used, the coding style or anything when I coded the assignment. I see nothing unethical in it. 3 years later the feature has still not made it to production. I hate that every time it would have made my working day easier :)

stjohnswarts 6y ago

I just don't do them and move on to the next company. I've never had an issue landing my next gig. I'll do all day multi round interviews and white board questions. I'm not doing your work or taking a college exam again. Good luck and godspeed is all I can tell them.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Beefin 6y ago

I will only ever commit to a homework assignment if the employers' commitment level is on par. For example, if they want me to do a homework assignment before meeting the hiring manager, no way. In other words, the assignment CANNOT be the first gate otherwise companies will just spray and pray then find the most desperate candidates.

srcreigh 6y ago

Ubiq (YC company) interviewed me with an 8 hour assignment that had ridiculously challenging requirements. It was very fun because there was no way any normal human could do it in 8 hours... but how far could I get? And they paid me for 8 hours working on it. I felt this was good. I got paid and it was a fun challenge. It also obviously wasn't "actual work," but even if it was, I was getting paid, so why not? I don't think it would have been out of the question to say I was too busy to dedicate 8 hours either, but in my case I had the time. Overall it was an excellent experience.