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A lot of developers' best work is within employers' proprietary code bases, do you consider it a red flag when they share some of that code with you?
by itronitron 5y ago
A lot of developers' best work is within employers' proprietary code bases, do you consider it a red flag when they share some of that code with you?
- refactor_master 5y agoIt should be. As should “bring your own code”. In which other engineering industry can you ask this of people?
- IshKebab 5y agoArt, architecture, writing, music, I mean pretty much every creative industry.
- siquick 5y agoVery few of those jobs have output that is obfuscated from public view.
- refactor_master 5y agoHence why I said engineering industry. Would you ask a chemical engineer to bring a recipe for a proprietary drug synthesis? The creative industry doesn’t exactly aim to obfuscate its methods. Even better, would you ask a chemical engineer for their spare time projects? How would that even come about?
- ratww 5y agoI graduated and worked for a few years as an electrical engineer. I had/have a portfolio of sorts and would gladly bring one to a job interview, including previous projects. > Would you ask a chemical engineer to bring a recipe for a proprietary drug synthesis Nobody is asking for anyone to bring complete codebases, either. Not to mention that, in chemical engineering, if something is proprietary enough, there are patents. Those come with credits. I get the feeling that programming is the only industry paranoid enough to treat the most utterly mundane work as if it was bomb codes, averse to recognition enough to not credit people and disorganised/rushed enough so that 99% of companies are unable to let workers share their findings with others in the field.
- aidos 5y agoWe do the same thing and I find it’s a reasonable approach. For the candidate, it puts them at ease; they’re talking about something they’re familiar with (we go a step further and ask them to make changes to it).
- buf 5y agoI've never been put in the situation where an engineer shared something alarming from a proprietary code base, but hypothetically if someone brought with them the code for how to hack superuser privs for an old company, that would be an ethics violation and I would pass.
- deepsun 5y agoWell it does not matter if it's alarming or not. They are in violation of their signed NDAs with their previous employer. Also, if they don't work there anymore, they should've deleted all the code (if they had it) and surrendered/cleared up all the laptops. But I like your idea, anyway I give big kudos to candidates with their own pet projects.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pg_1234 5y agoAlmost every employer will violate their employee's rights without a second thought in ways they consider "unimportant but necessary to the business" ... as long as that continues it should be a 2-way street.
- hnfong 5y agoThe point is not necessarily whether it's morally wrong to violate a contractual agreement when the other party is likely to do so. It's that the interview process proposed by the G[...]P may force the candidate to do things that may be illegal to pass the interview. The candidate is of course responsible for their own choices, but the point is that as an interviewer, if you force your candidates to do this, you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. This might work out for some, but I'd say it's a fair point to bring up.
- leaflets2 5y ago> you might short list those who have a tendency to violate contract terms. An asshole filter https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html (maybe you've read already?)
- mbeex 5y agoIt hasn't to be the 'best' work. The actual value comes from the conversation.
- ProZsolt 5y agoI have tons of open source code on GitHub to scratch my own itch, but nothing that I consider production ready.