6 ms·

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this but IANAL.

anm89 5y ago
I mean, they say outright they hire old people and they hire young people. So I think you can make the argument fairly easily that that group includes everyone and that they are not discriminating.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  They meant employer NDAs, etc.
- soneca 5y ago
  Not GP, but I assumed they are talking about the part that they quoted —- consulting gig while on another job, not any discrimination worries.
- gravypod 5y ago
  I don't think there is discrimination immediately evident. I think there are legal implications in actively soliciting contract work from people who currently work at other companies under full time contracts that may preclude them from doing stuff like that (ex: FAANG).
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I don't think that is true. Any agreement you have with google/faang is your agreement and your punishment. You cannot bind others into the agreement. They face no legal implications.
    - foldr 5y ago
      The issue would be with IP. Facebook might be able to claim that the code your contractor worked on for you actually belongs to them.
    - regulation_d 5y ago
      For the most part, this is correct. One exception is "tortious interference with a contract". Let's say I work full-time for Company A, and in my employment agreement, I agree not to do any work on the side. Then let's say Company B knows that I work for Company A and knows that I am contractually prohibited from working for them. If Company B induces me to breach my employment agreement with Company A, Company A can often sue them under the "tortious interference with a contract" cause of action. For most US jurisdictions, intent is required on the part of the obstructing party, but in a minority of jurisdictions, negligence is enough. I suspect this is why there's a clause in most employment agreements that I've signed, where the employee has to represent that they are free to enter into the agreement.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Why can’t I solicit work from all comers, trusting that they have the responsibility to ensure that they aren’t violating any contract that they’ve agreed to (without my knowledge)?
    - gravypod 5y ago
      If you are asking: "Why can't I solicit XYZ from all comers, trusting that they have the responsibility to ensure that they aren't violating any contract" We can look at: Louis Rossmann soliciting firmware, tools, schematics, and parts from people. He's started that he feels he is, at best, in a legal grey area. At worst, he's paying people to exfiltrate intellectual property and trade secrets from Apple. Moonlighting can look like industrial espionage if you squint really hard.
- webmaven 5y ago
  I suppose that still excludes the atemporal.
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
What would you think is illegal about it? They make it clear that age is not an issue.
- dharmab 5y ago
  Many full time jobs include language preventing you from working a second job in a similar role.
  - foxhop 5y ago
    I doubt the person they are searching for is currently in a similar role. They want domain specific knowledge about a stable and _old_ codebase. They want the person around as a teacher mentor, and the first gig is something the business needs but would prefer to sub out. Seems like a normal accepted practice when defined that way.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Never accept such jobs unless you are desperate. Your employer does not control or own your spare time. Don’t cede control of it to them!
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    How far does that extend when interviewing? Some companies claim all code written. In theory that might include your leetcode.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Similar role? Or at a similar company? I would expect my company to be unhappy if I were to consult for a competitor on the side. There's probably language in the employment agreement that prohibits that, and even if there isn't, it's still the kind of thing you should avoid due to conflict of interest. But I'm not sure about an agreement not to take a similar role. If the employment agreement says that, I'm not sure that it's legally binding. Even if it is, you may be able to weasel around it with "but it's consulting, not a full-time position". Note well: IANAL. If you're concerned, get advice from a lawyer rather than from some rando on the internet.
tinyhouse 5y ago
I wouldn't call it not legal, but it indeed can violate the terms many employees sign when they join a company. I think it's a matter of how they frame it. If they frame it as actually doing some work for the company then I would say that would be illegal for many. But if it's framed as an interview then maybe it's OK. Not a lawyer, I assuming it's gray area.
jays 5y ago
We did this at the last startup I founded. While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels. We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.
- nomel 5y ago
  I imagine this simply would not work for someone with multiple offers though, which could act as a pretty severe filter of talent.
  - ljm 5y ago
    It just looks like a consulting gig with the potential offer of a job afterwards. If the rates are good and the offer is decently compensated, it's probably a fine way to recruit for what looks to be a highly specialised position. Probably not going to get that many low-level postgres specialists with deep experience walking through the door. If the consultant feels good about the project then they've got the chance to stick around in the long term.
    - jays 5y ago
      Well we didn't market it like that and while technically it is consulting for a period of time, it doesn't have to feel that way. The interview process was similar to any other company, but at the end we asked the candidate to do a short project (20 hours or less), which they would collaborate on with someone internally. So only the best candidates made it to the project and hopefully at that point there were pretty sold on the company. Did we lose some candidates? Sure, but we also didn't have any hires we regretted after changing to it.
- zsmi 5y ago
  > No need to quit your day job to do this gig This might be true for the employer, but for the employee, I think there could be serious issues. For example, my present employer would be very unhappy if I agreed to this and I have no idea how it would play out. I'm almost positive it is in violation of my present employment contract. Did the candidate that went for it actually have full time employment? If so, did they get approval first?
ryneandal 5y ago
The fact that offering gig work to FT employees could have legal repercussions sounds off alarm bells about the US's unhealthy attitude towards employees. It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work.
- gravypod 5y ago
  (Opinions are my own, not my employer's) > It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work. I think this, and the general brain-drain from the broader industry, is really holding the tech sector back. So much OSS could be written if contracts weren't abusive in this way.
  - Dhirvish 5y ago
    I mean the fundamental issue is we've created a society that's automated an INCREDIBLE amount of work, and yet the daily work week is no shorter. We've got automated switchboards, giant robots that make cars, giant robots that do our farming, massive plants for producing power. We even have enough housing already built in this country to house 6x the total number of homeless people. It's a false economy, and we know it because we're primarily a "service" economy. So if most of our food is produced by robots, we have enough housing, and most of our jobs just exist to push health care paperwork around. Why are we not all on 20-30 hour work weeks?! I'm pretty sure most people would be fine doing 5-10 hours a week of essential nursing or working a field or whatever outside their "primary" job if you got 10-20 hours off the rest of the week. Our system is freaking stupid.
sahillavingia 5y ago
We do this at Gumroad. Works great; will never go back.
- hcta 5y ago
  Do you have any pointers/docs on how to make this work? At the most basic level, how do you prevent people from wasting your money with no effort on their part e.g. by transitively contracting the task to the lowest bidder and pocketing the difference? (Not to say there are many people out there who would actually do this, but incentives clearly need to be fixed if it is feasible.)
  - SergeAx 5y ago
    IF I am ready to pay XXX bucks for doing a given job in N days, I don't really care about who actually did it. I do care about quality, so if it is substandard - we'll part ways with this contractor sooner or later. But this actually may work for simple tasks, and a company in question doesn't looks like it is gonna throw simple tasks on their consultants.
kube-system 5y ago
Non-competes, anti-moonlighting clauses, and contract employment are all quite common and have been for a long time. The "legal implication" is that you read the contracts and follow it or work around it. Most corporate/employment lawyers, HR teams, or hiring managers should be fairly familiar with these situations. Also, the demands listed in employment agreements are not always legally enforceable, or not legally enforceable in as broad of a way that they appear to be phrased.
dhosek 5y ago
It's pretty common for companies to do contract to hire (enough so that recruiters will often just write CTH in their emails). This is a variation of that which seems a lot fairer than another approach I've experienced, which was a full-day pairing exercise which effectively translated to donating a day's work to the prospective hirer (admittedly, its value to them was relatively low since you were coming in with little knowledge or context, but its value to you is presumably non-zero).

anm89 5y ago

I mean, they say outright they hire old people and they hire young people. So I think you can make the argument fairly easily that that group includes everyone and that they are not discriminating.

redis_mlc 5y ago
They meant employer NDAs, etc.
soneca 5y ago
Not GP, but I assumed they are talking about the part that they quoted —- consulting gig while on another job, not any discrimination worries.
gravypod 5y ago
I don't think there is discrimination immediately evident. I think there are legal implications in actively soliciting contract work from people who currently work at other companies under full time contracts that may preclude them from doing stuff like that (ex: FAANG).
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I don't think that is true. Any agreement you have with google/faang is your agreement and your punishment. You cannot bind others into the agreement. They face no legal implications.
  - foldr 5y ago
    The issue would be with IP. Facebook might be able to claim that the code your contractor worked on for you actually belongs to them.
  - regulation_d 5y ago
    For the most part, this is correct. One exception is "tortious interference with a contract". Let's say I work full-time for Company A, and in my employment agreement, I agree not to do any work on the side. Then let's say Company B knows that I work for Company A and knows that I am contractually prohibited from working for them. If Company B induces me to breach my employment agreement with Company A, Company A can often sue them under the "tortious interference with a contract" cause of action. For most US jurisdictions, intent is required on the part of the obstructing party, but in a minority of jurisdictions, negligence is enough. I suspect this is why there's a clause in most employment agreements that I've signed, where the employee has to represent that they are free to enter into the agreement.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Why can’t I solicit work from all comers, trusting that they have the responsibility to ensure that they aren’t violating any contract that they’ve agreed to (without my knowledge)?
  - gravypod 5y ago
    If you are asking: "Why can't I solicit XYZ from all comers, trusting that they have the responsibility to ensure that they aren't violating any contract" We can look at: Louis Rossmann soliciting firmware, tools, schematics, and parts from people. He's started that he feels he is, at best, in a legal grey area. At worst, he's paying people to exfiltrate intellectual property and trade secrets from Apple. Moonlighting can look like industrial espionage if you squint really hard.
webmaven 5y ago
I suppose that still excludes the atemporal.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

What would you think is illegal about it? They make it clear that age is not an issue.

dharmab 5y ago
Many full time jobs include language preventing you from working a second job in a similar role.
- foxhop 5y ago
  I doubt the person they are searching for is currently in a similar role. They want domain specific knowledge about a stable and _old_ codebase. They want the person around as a teacher mentor, and the first gig is something the business needs but would prefer to sub out. Seems like a normal accepted practice when defined that way.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Never accept such jobs unless you are desperate. Your employer does not control or own your spare time. Don’t cede control of it to them!
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  How far does that extend when interviewing? Some companies claim all code written. In theory that might include your leetcode.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Similar role? Or at a similar company? I would expect my company to be unhappy if I were to consult for a competitor on the side. There's probably language in the employment agreement that prohibits that, and even if there isn't, it's still the kind of thing you should avoid due to conflict of interest. But I'm not sure about an agreement not to take a similar role. If the employment agreement says that, I'm not sure that it's legally binding. Even if it is, you may be able to weasel around it with "but it's consulting, not a full-time position". Note well: IANAL. If you're concerned, get advice from a lawyer rather than from some rando on the internet.

tinyhouse 5y ago

I wouldn't call it not legal, but it indeed can violate the terms many employees sign when they join a company. I think it's a matter of how they frame it. If they frame it as actually doing some work for the company then I would say that would be illegal for many. But if it's framed as an interview then maybe it's OK. Not a lawyer, I assuming it's gray area.

jays 5y ago

We did this at the last startup I founded. While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels. We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.

nomel 5y ago
I imagine this simply would not work for someone with multiple offers though, which could act as a pretty severe filter of talent.
- ljm 5y ago
  It just looks like a consulting gig with the potential offer of a job afterwards. If the rates are good and the offer is decently compensated, it's probably a fine way to recruit for what looks to be a highly specialised position. Probably not going to get that many low-level postgres specialists with deep experience walking through the door. If the consultant feels good about the project then they've got the chance to stick around in the long term.
  - jays 5y ago
    Well we didn't market it like that and while technically it is consulting for a period of time, it doesn't have to feel that way. The interview process was similar to any other company, but at the end we asked the candidate to do a short project (20 hours or less), which they would collaborate on with someone internally. So only the best candidates made it to the project and hopefully at that point there were pretty sold on the company. Did we lose some candidates? Sure, but we also didn't have any hires we regretted after changing to it.
zsmi 5y ago
> No need to quit your day job to do this gig This might be true for the employer, but for the employee, I think there could be serious issues. For example, my present employer would be very unhappy if I agreed to this and I have no idea how it would play out. I'm almost positive it is in violation of my present employment contract. Did the candidate that went for it actually have full time employment? If so, did they get approval first?

ryneandal 5y ago

The fact that offering gig work to FT employees could have legal repercussions sounds off alarm bells about the US's unhealthy attitude towards employees. It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work.

gravypod 5y ago
(Opinions are my own, not my employer's) > It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work. I think this, and the general brain-drain from the broader industry, is really holding the tech sector back. So much OSS could be written if contracts weren't abusive in this way.
- Dhirvish 5y ago
  I mean the fundamental issue is we've created a society that's automated an INCREDIBLE amount of work, and yet the daily work week is no shorter. We've got automated switchboards, giant robots that make cars, giant robots that do our farming, massive plants for producing power. We even have enough housing already built in this country to house 6x the total number of homeless people. It's a false economy, and we know it because we're primarily a "service" economy. So if most of our food is produced by robots, we have enough housing, and most of our jobs just exist to push health care paperwork around. Why are we not all on 20-30 hour work weeks?! I'm pretty sure most people would be fine doing 5-10 hours a week of essential nursing or working a field or whatever outside their "primary" job if you got 10-20 hours off the rest of the week. Our system is freaking stupid.

sahillavingia 5y ago

We do this at Gumroad. Works great; will never go back.

hcta 5y ago
Do you have any pointers/docs on how to make this work? At the most basic level, how do you prevent people from wasting your money with no effort on their part e.g. by transitively contracting the task to the lowest bidder and pocketing the difference? (Not to say there are many people out there who would actually do this, but incentives clearly need to be fixed if it is feasible.)
- SergeAx 5y ago
  IF I am ready to pay XXX bucks for doing a given job in N days, I don't really care about who actually did it. I do care about quality, so if it is substandard - we'll part ways with this contractor sooner or later. But this actually may work for simple tasks, and a company in question doesn't looks like it is gonna throw simple tasks on their consultants.

kube-system 5y ago

Non-competes, anti-moonlighting clauses, and contract employment are all quite common and have been for a long time. The "legal implication" is that you read the contracts and follow it or work around it. Most corporate/employment lawyers, HR teams, or hiring managers should be fairly familiar with these situations. Also, the demands listed in employment agreements are not always legally enforceable, or not legally enforceable in as broad of a way that they appear to be phrased.

dhosek 5y ago

It's pretty common for companies to do contract to hire (enough so that recruiters will often just write CTH in their emails). This is a variation of that which seems a lot fairer than another approach I've experienced, which was a full-day pairing exercise which effectively translated to donating a day's work to the prospective hirer (admittedly, its value to them was relatively low since you were coming in with little knowledge or context, but its value to you is presumably non-zero).