8 ms·

I saw one of these at a job when I graduated undergrad. I had an over the phone interview with a consulting company, Revature specifically. I can't even remembe

I saw one of these at a job when I graduated undergrad. I had an over the phone interview with a consulting company, Revature specifically. I can't even remember if I applied to them or not (since I applied to so many). After what was a 10 trivia question type interview they decided to "give me an offer!". It was a contract $50k a year, for two years with a $20k "training fee" that was fully repayable if you leave before 2 years. I obviously declined it because that is a ludicrously low salary for a software developer in the US, and also it was an insane "training fee". So I presume, their business model is desperate people for jobs, "train" them, then keep them in indentured servitude. They also tried to hard sell a job which is obviously gross.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
This happened to me, too. I could imagine someone without connections, who is desperate, who simply doesn’t know how much software devs could make, who comes from poverty, etc. would be vulnerable.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  That was mostly me at a certain point in my career except I did know how much devs could make. That doesn't make them actually offer you a job at that salary though. I didn't get into anything like this but I took an offer far far below market rate. When you have no connections, no resources, no work history in the field, dependents to support.... Shit $42k was still more than I was making in the career I came from. I took it then and people are still taking that stuff now. They aren't wrong to do so either, but the ones exploiting them in this way are wrong to do it.
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    When you have no connections, no resources, no work history in the field Sounds like you took a job at roughly the market rate (for what you're offering), not below market rate. Just because some developers earn a lot, doesn't mean all developers should immediately earn that much or otherwise consider themselves underpaid. Having connections, resources, experience, education etc. makes you more valuable and therefore increases the value of what you're offering. In other words, don't compare apples and oranges just because they're both fruit.
    - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
      Yeah, the salaries being touted around here aren't typical for a non hyper-inflated job market. Most of the country, in my research, will pay 40-60k for a junior developer, but won't own you either (giving you time to find/ build a family, friends, hobbies, etc)
    - eptcyka 4y ago
      How is having connections directly increasing the value I am able to deliver to an employer? I mostly use connections to get the job, so it benefits me, but it doesn't make me any more valuable to an employer.
      - evilduck 4y ago
        I've referred people in my professional network to my employers saving them on recruiter fees and protracted hiring efforts, reducing opportunity cost of the job sitting vacant, reducing risks of a bad hire, and sometimes increasing productivity of those around them as well. It's hard to put exact numbers on the long tail effects but a well connected long term employee could easily be worth double.
      - derekp7 4y ago
        Connections is another way of saying references, which is a less formal but sometimes more valuable variation of having credentials. If an employer hires 10 unknown people, maybe 4 will work out good and the other 6 will be possibly a net loss. Whereas hiring 10 people with references that you trust, if 9 work out then that is a positive for the employer. That is the value that having connections brings to the employer, it makes you more of a "known" vs "unknown" (not that it increases your specific value, but it is a value to the overall process).
        ethbr0 4y ago
        This. Most job seekers misunderstand the hiring process from the hirer's perspective. Companies aren't paying someone with references more because of luck. They're paying that person more because that person has less risk and hiring the wrong employee is incredibly expensive. Effectively, they're amortizing and rebating the dollar value of that person's risk reduction into their salary. Hint for new/first job seekers: this is why (non-predatory) internships are win/win, the company is able to ascertain your risk (in lieu of references or a track record) and therefore make you and offer and hire you for a higher (de-risked) salary.
  - mcv 4y ago
    A job below market rate isn't a problem, as long as you're able to leave when something better comes along. Underpaying and then having a fee when they leave, is probably worse than nothing.
    - 7speter 4y ago
      People have bills (there were all of those threads yesterday about how bad student loan forgiveness was for society, right?) and no one will even date you now if you don’t have job, McDonalds won’t hire you if you have SQL as a skill on your resume, so at a certain point, this is better than nothing.
    - jotm 4y ago
      You can after 2 years, what am I missing? Or is that too much time to spend at a job nowadays?
      - hansvm 4y ago
        Life is complicated, and people leave jobs all the time for reasons I expect you'd find valid (take care of an aging family member, move with your spouse to their new tenure-track position, ...). Analogizing with another crime against a person's freedom to do as they please, consider "kidnapping." It includes forcibly restraining a person or moving them some place they'd like not to go, and in the eyes of the law the duration doesn't matter; people have unsuccessfully defended kidnapping charges for minutes of detainment. If you agree that the fees in question do rise to the level of indentured servitude (which seems plausible at least), then the fact that it's only for 4% of your working life shouldn't be a relevant consideration.
        jotm 4y ago
        I dont want to be at work lol Big difference is I'm getting money. I've wasted over a decade (thanks health care in Europe, you stinky garbage!), so I don't get your last point.
      - paledot 4y ago
- petesergeant 4y ago
  Alternative hot-take: those first two years of experience are often the hardest to get, and junior devs are simply not that productive. 3x minimum wage for some work experience that is going to allow you to be charging 6 figures in short order is probably ... not that bad? Hard to make exact comparisons because of inflation + country differences but my first programming job paid $30k and I didn't feel exploited
  - jotm 4y ago
    I'd have taken such an offer in a heartbeat just to get back in the industry. "Indentured servitude" 2 years being paid... what ridiculous bs, that's normal in many countries.
- treis 4y ago
  I didn't go through Revature but I did go through something similar. They hired me after an extended period of travel with no programming experience to speak of after no one else would. 8 years later I'm a "senior" dev making 200k. Can you argue that I was vulnerable and my original company took advantage of the situation? Perhaps. But nobody else was hiring me so in my eyes they were the company that treated me the best at the time.
- 7speter 4y ago
  Just leave it at someone who doesn’t have connections who is desperate, really.
62951413 4y ago
This is similar to what bodyshops used to do 15+ years ago to the developers they brought in on H1Bs. To prevent them from jumping ship once they are in the country. Curiously, the penalty was also about $15K and typical compensation about $65K. Is it happening to the citizens now too?
- Swizec 4y ago
  Oh you don’t even need to charge anything for H1Bs to work as indentured servitude. The visa says who you’re allowed to work for. Leave the company (or get fired or laid off) and you have 10 days to leave the country or find another job that will sponsor your visa. As you can imagine few people choose to leave the company under these conditions. Best part is that companies can also appeal to the employee’s sense of fairness: “We paid $10,000 for your visa. You value that favor from us don’t you? Imagine if you had to pay that yourself”
  - notch656a 4y ago
    I don't even get what the incentive is to become an H1B nowadays. Work under some insane visa requirements with often fuck all chance of actually becoming a citizen unless you roll a magic dice roll over and over. Or stay home, contract out remotely for $10 an hour or whatever shit pay contracting gets which works out to be a god damn fortune in rural India or China (most H1B come from one of those two countries).
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Not everyone moves for economic reason alone. Moving from the third world to the first also brings a certain degree of social and political stability, less crime, and generally fewer risks in life. Consider someone in, say, rural Russia or Ukraine working that way - and then 2022 happens. (I know that many Americans think that the sky is falling on them, too - and they may even be correct, but they have a very different baseline.)
      - notch656a 4y ago
thayne 4y ago
I know someone who got several offers like this. And often, it sounded like you had to pay them back even if they are unsatisfied with your work and fire you. There were also a couple offers where they wouldn't pay him for the first few months as they "trained" him, and if they liked him, they would keep him on for a low salary "with lots of opportunities to move up".
- giantg2 4y ago
  'they would keep him on for a low salary "with lots of opportunities to move up".' Isn't this the scheme at most places?
  - thayne 4y ago
    By low I mean significantly less than market salaries for an entry level software developer.
  - dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
    >Isn't this the scheme at most places? Few realize that. I mean that is part of the whole game, slaves who do not feel they are slaves.
rtev 4y ago
They’re currently doing this in infosec to all the new people wanting to break into the field.
cat_plus_plus 4y ago
So did your college give you a better deal or did they just charge you for training and pay you nothing? What of people who went to a college less useful than yours, if any, and couldn't get any other job? After two years, maybe they can step up based on having a resume.
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  The college didn't try to trick them into a job that they'd have to stay in for 2 years to avoid a fee. The person knew - upfront - that it wasn't a job. They knew upfront that they'd need to pay the college for training. They were free to take employment for income while doing schooling. Seriously, there is a difference between a college and upfront knowledge about fees and someone trying to trick you into an indentured servant "job".
  - cat_plus_plus 4y ago
    OF COURSE there is a difference between an honest business transaction and being tricked. Plenty of colleges charge unreasonable sums for useless degrees while promising access to upper echelons of society. Wouldn't you rather take practically useful training while getting paid at least some money, provided you know what it will cost and what are your options to get the fee waived? I am not saying these particular cases were so rosy.
    - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
      I support "useless" degrees because I don't see education as useless, even if others don't see practical use in the degree. I'm very OK with tax money being used for things like art and music and philosophy. An educated populace helps everyone, even if you don't see the direct results of it. An educated populace is slightly more difficult to dupe, too. I find it offensive that we charge what we do for education, period, and the offer to get some of it paid of by a workplace shouldn't even be something that folks need to do. I do not ever support someone being beholden to a job because of a financial hit that extends beyond the effects of a missing paycheck, be it "good", discounted insurance or a being charged for training at a workplace for whatever reason.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Spoom 4y ago
Revature is well known and generally advised against in r/cscareerquestions as they come up regularly. There are unfortunately a few companies with this model now.
danjoredd 4y ago
Revature is the worst. The only people that sign up for them either don't know any better, lack motivation, or are truly desperate. Its one of the most gross companies I have ever come across. Another similar company reached out to me last year. I can't remember their name, but it was the exact same business model. They wanted to move me to the other side of the country and train me in a language that I already used all the time.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

This happened to me, too. I could imagine someone without connections, who is desperate, who simply doesn’t know how much software devs could make, who comes from poverty, etc. would be vulnerable.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
That was mostly me at a certain point in my career except I did know how much devs could make. That doesn't make them actually offer you a job at that salary though. I didn't get into anything like this but I took an offer far far below market rate. When you have no connections, no resources, no work history in the field, dependents to support.... Shit $42k was still more than I was making in the career I came from. I took it then and people are still taking that stuff now. They aren't wrong to do so either, but the ones exploiting them in this way are wrong to do it.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  When you have no connections, no resources, no work history in the field Sounds like you took a job at roughly the market rate (for what you're offering), not below market rate. Just because some developers earn a lot, doesn't mean all developers should immediately earn that much or otherwise consider themselves underpaid. Having connections, resources, experience, education etc. makes you more valuable and therefore increases the value of what you're offering. In other words, don't compare apples and oranges just because they're both fruit.
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    Yeah, the salaries being touted around here aren't typical for a non hyper-inflated job market. Most of the country, in my research, will pay 40-60k for a junior developer, but won't own you either (giving you time to find/ build a family, friends, hobbies, etc)
  - eptcyka 4y ago
    How is having connections directly increasing the value I am able to deliver to an employer? I mostly use connections to get the job, so it benefits me, but it doesn't make me any more valuable to an employer.
    - evilduck 4y ago
      I've referred people in my professional network to my employers saving them on recruiter fees and protracted hiring efforts, reducing opportunity cost of the job sitting vacant, reducing risks of a bad hire, and sometimes increasing productivity of those around them as well. It's hard to put exact numbers on the long tail effects but a well connected long term employee could easily be worth double.
    - derekp7 4y ago
      Connections is another way of saying references, which is a less formal but sometimes more valuable variation of having credentials. If an employer hires 10 unknown people, maybe 4 will work out good and the other 6 will be possibly a net loss. Whereas hiring 10 people with references that you trust, if 9 work out then that is a positive for the employer. That is the value that having connections brings to the employer, it makes you more of a "known" vs "unknown" (not that it increases your specific value, but it is a value to the overall process).
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        This. Most job seekers misunderstand the hiring process from the hirer's perspective. Companies aren't paying someone with references more because of luck. They're paying that person more because that person has less risk and hiring the wrong employee is incredibly expensive. Effectively, they're amortizing and rebating the dollar value of that person's risk reduction into their salary. Hint for new/first job seekers: this is why (non-predatory) internships are win/win, the company is able to ascertain your risk (in lieu of references or a track record) and therefore make you and offer and hire you for a higher (de-risked) salary.
- mcv 4y ago
  A job below market rate isn't a problem, as long as you're able to leave when something better comes along. Underpaying and then having a fee when they leave, is probably worse than nothing.
  - 7speter 4y ago
    People have bills (there were all of those threads yesterday about how bad student loan forgiveness was for society, right?) and no one will even date you now if you don’t have job, McDonalds won’t hire you if you have SQL as a skill on your resume, so at a certain point, this is better than nothing.
  - jotm 4y ago
    You can after 2 years, what am I missing? Or is that too much time to spend at a job nowadays?
    - hansvm 4y ago
      Life is complicated, and people leave jobs all the time for reasons I expect you'd find valid (take care of an aging family member, move with your spouse to their new tenure-track position, ...). Analogizing with another crime against a person's freedom to do as they please, consider "kidnapping." It includes forcibly restraining a person or moving them some place they'd like not to go, and in the eyes of the law the duration doesn't matter; people have unsuccessfully defended kidnapping charges for minutes of detainment. If you agree that the fees in question do rise to the level of indentured servitude (which seems plausible at least), then the fact that it's only for 4% of your working life shouldn't be a relevant consideration.
      - jotm 4y ago
        I dont want to be at work lol Big difference is I'm getting money. I've wasted over a decade (thanks health care in Europe, you stinky garbage!), so I don't get your last point.
    - paledot 4y ago
petesergeant 4y ago
Alternative hot-take: those first two years of experience are often the hardest to get, and junior devs are simply not that productive. 3x minimum wage for some work experience that is going to allow you to be charging 6 figures in short order is probably ... not that bad? Hard to make exact comparisons because of inflation + country differences but my first programming job paid $30k and I didn't feel exploited
- jotm 4y ago
  I'd have taken such an offer in a heartbeat just to get back in the industry. "Indentured servitude" 2 years being paid... what ridiculous bs, that's normal in many countries.
treis 4y ago
I didn't go through Revature but I did go through something similar. They hired me after an extended period of travel with no programming experience to speak of after no one else would. 8 years later I'm a "senior" dev making 200k. Can you argue that I was vulnerable and my original company took advantage of the situation? Perhaps. But nobody else was hiring me so in my eyes they were the company that treated me the best at the time.
7speter 4y ago
Just leave it at someone who doesn’t have connections who is desperate, really.

62951413 4y ago

This is similar to what bodyshops used to do 15+ years ago to the developers they brought in on H1Bs. To prevent them from jumping ship once they are in the country. Curiously, the penalty was also about $15K and typical compensation about $65K. Is it happening to the citizens now too?

Swizec 4y ago
Oh you don’t even need to charge anything for H1Bs to work as indentured servitude. The visa says who you’re allowed to work for. Leave the company (or get fired or laid off) and you have 10 days to leave the country or find another job that will sponsor your visa. As you can imagine few people choose to leave the company under these conditions. Best part is that companies can also appeal to the employee’s sense of fairness: “We paid $10,000 for your visa. You value that favor from us don’t you? Imagine if you had to pay that yourself”
- notch656a 4y ago
  I don't even get what the incentive is to become an H1B nowadays. Work under some insane visa requirements with often fuck all chance of actually becoming a citizen unless you roll a magic dice roll over and over. Or stay home, contract out remotely for $10 an hour or whatever shit pay contracting gets which works out to be a god damn fortune in rural India or China (most H1B come from one of those two countries).
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Not everyone moves for economic reason alone. Moving from the third world to the first also brings a certain degree of social and political stability, less crime, and generally fewer risks in life. Consider someone in, say, rural Russia or Ukraine working that way - and then 2022 happens. (I know that many Americans think that the sky is falling on them, too - and they may even be correct, but they have a very different baseline.)
    - notch656a 4y ago

thayne 4y ago

I know someone who got several offers like this. And often, it sounded like you had to pay them back even if they are unsatisfied with your work and fire you. There were also a couple offers where they wouldn't pay him for the first few months as they "trained" him, and if they liked him, they would keep him on for a low salary "with lots of opportunities to move up".

giantg2 4y ago
'they would keep him on for a low salary "with lots of opportunities to move up".' Isn't this the scheme at most places?
- thayne 4y ago
  By low I mean significantly less than market salaries for an entry level software developer.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
  >Isn't this the scheme at most places? Few realize that. I mean that is part of the whole game, slaves who do not feel they are slaves.

rtev 4y ago

They’re currently doing this in infosec to all the new people wanting to break into the field.

cat_plus_plus 4y ago

So did your college give you a better deal or did they just charge you for training and pay you nothing? What of people who went to a college less useful than yours, if any, and couldn't get any other job? After two years, maybe they can step up based on having a resume.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago
The college didn't try to trick them into a job that they'd have to stay in for 2 years to avoid a fee. The person knew - upfront - that it wasn't a job. They knew upfront that they'd need to pay the college for training. They were free to take employment for income while doing schooling. Seriously, there is a difference between a college and upfront knowledge about fees and someone trying to trick you into an indentured servant "job".
- cat_plus_plus 4y ago
  OF COURSE there is a difference between an honest business transaction and being tricked. Plenty of colleges charge unreasonable sums for useless degrees while promising access to upper echelons of society. Wouldn't you rather take practically useful training while getting paid at least some money, provided you know what it will cost and what are your options to get the fee waived? I am not saying these particular cases were so rosy.
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    I support "useless" degrees because I don't see education as useless, even if others don't see practical use in the degree. I'm very OK with tax money being used for things like art and music and philosophy. An educated populace helps everyone, even if you don't see the direct results of it. An educated populace is slightly more difficult to dupe, too. I find it offensive that we charge what we do for education, period, and the offer to get some of it paid of by a workplace shouldn't even be something that folks need to do. I do not ever support someone being beholden to a job because of a financial hit that extends beyond the effects of a missing paycheck, be it "good", discounted insurance or a being charged for training at a workplace for whatever reason.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Spoom 4y ago

Revature is well known and generally advised against in r/cscareerquestions as they come up regularly. There are unfortunately a few companies with this model now.

danjoredd 4y ago

Revature is the worst. The only people that sign up for them either don't know any better, lack motivation, or are truly desperate. Its one of the most gross companies I have ever come across. Another similar company reached out to me last year. I can't remember their name, but it was the exact same business model. They wanted to move me to the other side of the country and train me in a language that I already used all the time.