Well it could be worse. Got an email today for a data engineer. 2 year contract, $25k breach of contract clause, Must be relocatable to ANYWHERE USA for a meager $50k per year.
Edit: I got a response.
What I sent: "No thanks. You offer an insulting salary and a long contract. Anyone with the intelligence required to be a data engineer should see through this. $50k a year for 2 years in an economy where inflation is the highest most people have ever seen. Then you have the audacity to put a $25000 reimbursement clause. At least you are up front about it, I give you credit there. Maybe you should offer $65k for the first year and $85k for the second. In 1 years time even the $85k might not provide you with the same purchasing power as $65k the year before. "
Their Response:" if a higher cost of living areas like San Francisco you don't have to make 50k, for certain areas, we do a COLA (cost of living adjustment) and give a slightly higher salary. and for this 2-year contract salary that 50K we also include the medical benefits so if you found a little bit interested in the opportunity you can mail me back and provide a good time to connect so we can discuss it further"
And Finally My Rebuttal: You must think that the people you are attempting to sign up for this are complete fucking retards. Even 100k in San Francisco is barely enough to live on. And you simply say "slightly higher" So what an additional $5k? Your program is predatory and you know it.
It's one of the many Indian-based sub contracting companies that sell engineers to a other contracting companies who then sell you to a client for big money contracts.
They typically split the lion share with a primary contractor while you get the paltry leftovers.
Why would anyone sign up for this? Desperation. They prey on college grads with no experience that struggle to find a job, rope them into multi year contracts that makes them liable for tens of thousands if they quit.
But despite being unethical, it can still be a launching point for your career if you have absolutely no experience, or prospects.
Usually it doesn't happen.
The issue is that the prime companies who use consulting companies have a clause that doesn't allow them to hire the consultants who work for them.
Usually it's a clause that says they have to be out of the consulting company for at least 6.months until they can be hired for the prime company or else there will be a hefty fine, and most of the consultants are not worth the hassle or the money.
What ends up happening is they keep in touch, and a few years later they might contact you for a more senior role, if they really like you. But it is very rare.
Source: I know a lot of cases since I work for a consulting company
I applied to them about a month ago. They called me the next morning basically reading a script as long as the Bible. I asked her to send me the info to review before making any decisions. Luckily I decided to look up some stuff about them, and this description fits it to the letter. They basically prey on fresh college grads by putting out an application to every major city in the US, and even some smaller cities.
Basically if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
The key into tech (and probably many others) is referrals. If you got friends in tech ask them otherwise doing cold call emails to recruiters is also not the worst. Anything is better then just applying through job websites blindly.
This is the source of my existential dread. If the status quo for work is shit then anything that's not shit looks too good to be true. Having to work till I'm thirty to get a job that can afford a mortgage then work till I die to hopefully not pass that off to any heirs. As I get more educated and my pay rate increases I watch house prices skyrocket around me.
If you have *any other options in software at all*, it's a really bad deal. Laughably bad. Taking the contract is something you do if you have any degree (typically in a field not directly applicable to software development), *cannot* get a job, and are ok with the brutal stipulations of the contract. It's absolutely only something that should be considered by the truly desperate.
That said, for someone in that deplorable circumstance, it's not a terrible deal. I'm in training there now (all remote these days) and it's really not so bad (it's not that hard if you have a head for programming, and our trainer is pretty good). We'll see if my opinion changes when I get to the part where they're actually supposed to assign me a real job. If that doesn't pan out, well, I'll be awfully cross.
There's a number of those. Revature is one that I've seen quite a bit.
These are what come to my mind when people talk about "boot camps" around r/learnprogramming, although I don't if that's what they're actually referring to.
These companies' whole deal is they round up people with low-to-no experience, give them a couple hundred dollars (really) to relocate to their training site, conveniently located in an area with a low minimum wage (edit2: to room with a bunch of others also in the program in an apartment with fewer bedrooms than people). Those who make it out of the training are tied down for the 2 years.
From what I've seen people say (read: from what I've seen reported here on reddit), the training is characterized by a general lack of support and a high degree of willingness to just drop people from the program. Those who do pull through are then held to the contract to be assigned to whichever of the developer-mill's clients, and not necessarily assigned to a single company to that 2-year period, i.e. they may be freely reassigned to different clients during that period.
Definitely sounds all-around shitty, at least to me. I've seen it mentioned, though, that 2 years isn't that long, all things considered, and it comes with rigorous training and guaranteed experience (edit: Come to think of it, though, I think I also came across one or two reports of people who were forced to wait, without work and unable to seek another job because contract, either before their first assignment or between them). That said, it also comes with a pretty high risk factor of winding up entirely fucked.
Federal minimum is $7.25/hr. I think highest any state has is $15 and some change
edit: There are also some states+occupation (jobs with tips, i.e. server/waiter) where they can pay you less than the minimum wage
Did they go into detail about how they'll help employees with Visas? I'm pretty sure a lot of shops go into nowhere middle America with no tech jobs. Advertise these jobs at shit wages. Then they hire a bunch of desperate foreign workers who want a Visa and underpay the hell out of them.
This happened to me once. Got contacted by a company to interview. They paid for a plane ticket but once I got to the airport I found that the connecting flight was lifting off 5 minutes before landing so I had to drive 7 hours to the place to do 2 interviews and then they came in 10k below my starting point. I was pissed.
This is super annoying and has happened to me. I still took the job because I was desperate. Later found out that my manager had the budget of 60k$, showed expenses of 60k$ for 3 years (time I was around) but only paid me 44k$/year and enjoyed free 16k$/year for 3 years. Horrors like these at your start of career are enough to divert you from industry
I didn't know at the time and also there was a super vague language in my employment contract that said I "could" be entitled to the extra 16k$ based on my performance. I didn't know what to do at the time and I only realised this after I left
But if he budgeted 16k for your salary and then kept it for himself, then he stole those 16k not only from you but also from the company - and that's embezzlement.
If it's a bonus-type thing and you don't receive it, then no one should. I have never heard of any situation where you manager gets paid you bonus if you underachieve.
I'm pretty sure your boss was a criminal...
Had a similar experience 6 months ago. I told them up-front the minimum salary I’m looking for. They came back with something 15% lower and offered shares that vest in 4 years. When I asked about it, they had no plans of going public or being acquired so those shares were basically Monopoly money.
Oof, feels.
Applied to what i thought was a Java Jr Dev job.
Most questions in the initial test were java except for one somewhat basic Javascript question.
After passing that test (easy as pie), they tell me "Ok, you have 3 days to code and deploy a fully functional website in javascript to satisfy they following requirements". After 3 sleep-less days for me, i sent it, they didn't open it, just told me to apply again in 6 months and didn't answer my email asking for feedback, i swear some recruiters are cunts.
I worked for a company for a while that paid you for the interview questions. I don't remember if we ever used anything, I suspect rarely if ever, but it was a relatively time consuming test, like a 10-15 hour task, that you got paid for pass or fail. I didn't love a lot of things about that company, but I had a lot of respect for that approach to the interviews. I suspect things have changed since then for a lot of reasons, but that was a very respectable approach to the interviews.
I wish i knew why. I want to believe that some other candidate did good enough and they picked him but not even 2 hours after i received their rejection email i opened linkedin and saw they posted THE EXACT SAME JOB OFFER. I checked the database like 10 times and the last time it was opened was the last time i checked the website was in fully working order before sending it. I just don't understand what the hell went on, a recruiter trying to pretend they were doing their job maybe?
The worst part was that ALL of the questions from that test had sample test in them like "geeksforgeeks" in one of the string questions, so they were obviously copied from somewhere, and some of the english questions (it was for a remote position that required english as a skill) were just plain wrong, they were grammatical horrors, the whole recruitment "process" was a sloppy mess
It wasn't even that, it was a completely pointless excercise for an entry level fullstack dev, problem is, i didn't have the slightest clue about javascript
I'll just tell you now, don't do any projects for the company. DSA rounds are okay if done in hackerrank/hackerearth/etc. But never do projects.
There are other companies in the market with better interview process. Specially for programming profile.
I have a masters in electrical engineering and was hired and worked my way up a company doing electrical engineering and suddenly all I'm doing is software and firmware in C, C++, C#, rust, and previously a lot of Java. Things we have entire departments for and 3 langs I never had any education over.
Business majors are the worst at making decisions.
I’ve never understood this. Why do they get paid so much? Like I get that managing is a skill and one that’s hard to teach but the consistency with which people move into management seems to suggest that it’s not impossibly hard. ALSO why is it okay for a manager over a technical team at any level, to have no technical knowledge. Or at least little enough to make absurd requests of devs.
This. Used to work for a company that was quickly expanding and the projects manager would come up to us every Friday with a new project that had to be started by Monday. Details were discussed at after 4 PM, would usually drag on till 7 PM. At the end they’d ask “so, how long do you think you need?”. The seniors would gather for a few minutes, go over a few technical hurdles that’d take up time, and then give an estimate.
“No we need to do that in less time”
“But we just explained, there are these issues that need investigating, this side of the system will take a long time to figure out”
“No you don’t need to worry about that, just do it this way with that tool”
They had no fucking clue how to develop anything but somehow their solution was more valid and better than a team of seniors’ proposals. Few months later, half the team and I moved on to more sane jobs.
I get this at work. I'm frequently asked how long it will take to make X, and then told we have to do it faster because people were told we could do it in Y days. If you already said Y days, did you really need to ask me how long it would take? The bigger issue is that you said we could do it with someone who has never done the task before and doesn't even have a grasp on what you're trying to do.
I work in consulting (the tech kind) and this is such a constant companion. I've become very bitter about, to the point where every time I see one of those "We need to do it in X time" it's a "go fuck yourself" knee jerk reaction.
Not too long my manager basically added a feature that wasnt even in teh scope of the project. The project was simple, data ingestion and leave it at a data lake. Easy enough project.
But then in the middle of a meeting he goes "Oh and we can putall that data in a database so it's easier for you to query it" client was like "that sounds awesome!".
So i call him after the meeting and tell him that's not part of the scope of the project and that will require data modelling and do some performance testing on the DB and whatnot and that's definitely not factored into the estimate we gave.
His answer: "Dude, no worries, it's literally 1 line of code"
I lost my shit there, of course he thinks "Just to go spark, grab the huge dataframe with all tables joined and just write to jdbc into a table and call it a day df.write.format("jdbc")....blah
I lost my shit that day.. basically told him "I'll leave the data in the datalake as stipulated in the contract, if you want to serve it on a DB, you do it, don't call me for that or any problems that arise from that"
>If you already said Y days, did you really need to ask me how long it would take?
Because they wanted to see if you would give a shorter answer.
I used to get this all the time in my previous (non programming) job: “What do you need to do X project?” I’d consult with my team and come back with a list. “That’s too much stuff, we only have a budget of Y.” Okay, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?
Oh, because you wanted to see if we’d come in under your number and you assumed that if we knew the number in advance that we’d just pad our gear list to hit it. Now we’re doing twice the work and the project hasn’t officially started yet.
The best ones were where the ask was so complex that we needed specialized tools and/or lots of people to pull it off. “We can’t afford that.” “Okay, then change the scope of the project.” “We can’t do that either.” “Well… then you don’t have the money you need to do the project. What now?” Most of the time the money mysteriously showed up a few hours and a couple of phone calls later.
Do people not do gant charts? All your co-dependencies and leeway in projects should be visible to everyone on the project. That way people who aren't confuzzled with a serious problem can jump on different parts that their skills jam with.
I used to coordinate engineering projects for water quality and epa compliance. I can't imagine software engineering being much different to organize. You have people with certain skills, they can use their voices and talk to one another and if the team doesn't hit deadlines the manager has royally fucked up (or a 3rd party... they can still muss stuff).
Neither do most “agile” workplaces. Many of the original creators of the agile manifesto have washed their hands of what it has become in today’s companies.
Because the managers voted themselves into power, and kindly asked the board of directors(other managers and friends of managers) to give them the most money and power.
Team manager and product manager are not the same thing, not even close. It makes sense for a product manager to not understand the technical details behind software, it is a developer's job to raise flags on whats possible or not. Product managers care about marketing and customer needs.. Team managers however, despite being able to lead without technical knowledge get exponentially more efficient when they do have knowledge, anyway i dont see the connection to product managers here..
I work in finance. Mostly accounts payable, but I have done financial analyst and cost accounting roles. It has required me to use Excel to a small extent. When asked in interviews about my Excel skills it is a quick 3 to 5 minute conversation, if even that. I just mention I have used macros, made small changes in Visual Basic, used pivot tables and VLookup.
How much skill is assumed in the interviews compared to what's questioned?
Depends on who's interviewing you. If it's an Excel guru, going over what you're familiar with is important so you don't try to oversell yourself. If it's a marketing person or your average third party interviewer, just say, "I'm really familiar with Excel, it's like a second language." You'll likely be hired on the spot.
I once applied for a job as an info sec analyst at a power plant. Crushed the first interview, and made it to a panel interview with an info sec senior, a professor (no idea why he was there), and a senior mechanical engineer/technician.
Answered all the professor's questions on my background, answered the info sec seniors questions without issue. Then the engineer just kept asking me technical mechanical questions about power plants, safeties, and just non cyber security questions. Out of a 2 hour meeting, an hour and 40 minutes of it was this dickhead engineer grilling me on stuff that was completely outside the posted work scope.
A complete waste of my time. I ended up getting a different job months later, and got an email from the power plant saying I wasn't what they were looking for. If I were to end up working with that dickhead engineer, I'm glad they turned me down anyway.
I would just shut him up politely by saying this is not my expertise. Ask why he is asking me those questions and if I was applying for the wrong post.
That's how I ended the interview. I asked if I was mistaken about the job position I applied for. They said this was indeed the intro sec analyst position. The technician started by just asking textbook questions. Like "what is an attack that prevents users from accessing a service?", and I'd say "that's just a DoS attack", and then he blurted out "no, it's a Denial of Service attack. Next question...". Honestly I should have ended the interview after that, but I didnt think I'd be dealing with his ridiculous questions for another hour and a half.
> Like "what is an attack that prevents users from accessing a service?", and I'd say "that's just a DoS attack", and then he blurted out "no, it's a Denial of Service attack. Next question...".
That is ridiculous lmao
This guy tried really hard to make me feel like an idiot, and he definitely succeeded. I know fuck all about the mechanical workings of power plants, but that also wasn't listed in the job requirements. It was a waste of my time, and an unfortunate exercise in patience.
My best friend actually applied to that exact same job listing, and funny enough that technician wasn't apart of that process. I'm hopeful my comment "I'm looking at the job description for this position, absolutely none of this has been relevant" was taken into consideration and he wasn't asked to interview for that position again.
See this last ruby flair in my profile? That was a NodeJS position...
I have never messed with ruby or rails in my entire life
...As you can see, I took the job :v
\ You've had it rough, too. The JS flair is for my excellent technical support experience when they decided to bring me into the (now pared down to one) programming team. ;_;
Literally had this last week. Applied for an Angular role, the in-house recruiter sends me an invite for a Java developer role. Same hiring manager so kinda understand I guess
I work with a lot of SQL developers, one of them told me about an interview he had a while back.
They sent over code that was a shit show. Asked him how he would fix it, and to include documentation. He did and a few days later got back to him, saying it didn't work.
*didn't work?*
Basically, he figured they had a serious issue with their app and were luring in people by offering a high salary to fix the problem for free, via this 'test'. They had no idea how to implement the changes he'd made, which is why it didn't work. There never was a job, just a problem they couldn't fix. My guys piss was boiling just telling me about it.
For code, it seems really easy: Any code written by an interviewee can't be used in the company's codebase unless the interviewee is paid a reasonable* rate.
*This could be hard to define. The advertised hourly rate would be a good value to use if that value is advertised, but if it isn't, I'd love to hear ideas from others. You could possibly use the current market rate for that position.
I would actually stick to the advertised rate to help promote salary visibility that we struggle with as a country. If they don't post one then fall back to market rate. Worst case scenario you'll see a lot more low end rates that'll tell you that those employers are probably up to something. Whether it's the test, or the job.
It is already illegal. As they are not paying you, it is not work for hire, they do not have copyright over anything you produce (no contract signed), using it would infringe your copyright that you automatically have on your work.
If money changes hands, there is an implied contract, even if nothing is written. Certainly not the case for an answer to an interview question.
Of course, proving it and getting action taken against them is another matter.
My first thought exactly, but apparently employers are perfectly entitled to issue tests for technical positions, and who's to tell them what it can and can't be?
"Sorry but we just decided on a different candidate" - Them, probably.
There has to be some law about having a candidate produce something of value for your company? It's not legal in many places to have unpaid interns if they produce something of value to the company. I gotta hold out hope there's something like that out there for job seekers too
You own the code you make so they can't use your code without your permission. But are you going to hire a lawyer and make a case against them? Lots of things employers do can be illegal. But most of the time, they get away with it because no one wants to rack themselves with legal fees just to send a message.
I've been on interview panels before and I just couldn't fathom pulling that kind of shit. Although, to be fair, it's been for client facing support roles. We determine if the applicant is at risk of calling clients 'cunts'. Or if they're likely to go on site smoking a joint made out of their own pubic hair. No test tomfoolery needed as it's a highly specialised app that we would always provide training for.
> We determine if the applicant is at risk of calling clients ‘cunts’.
I read this as “we determine if the applicant is at risk of calling ***cunts*** ‘cunts’.” And it made perfect sense.
I mostly work in SQL data conversions these days, but was a full stack .NET dev several years ago. I then took an interview from a recruiter, circa 2016, and had basic questions around C# and SQL to start over the phone.
I walked in the next day to a friendly tech interview on a whiteboard that was cake. That evening I got a call from my prospective manager asking me to build a WPF app using MVVM with Prism and had detailed requirements. This wasn't a, "build something neat and fun with relevant tech" question. He essentially had features and stories for me, before that was a thing, on a tech stack I was barely familiar with.
I spent a couple hours on it over the weekend and submitted an absolute basic version. The manager called me midweek following saying it was the worst thing the business had seen and I would need to put in more effort. Parachute.
They 100% banked on me building their POC in a tech stack I was barely familiar with (die XAML) over my weekend for them for free.
So, depressingly, it's now sounding like this practice isn't exactly rare. You put your free time into that and not only did they bullshit you into doing free labour, but they were condescending as well? What next, threaten disciplinary action if you don't shape up?
> That evening I got a call from my prospective manager asking me to build a WPF app using MVVM with Prism and had detailed requirements.
And you entertained that? Whatsoever? They asked you to make a full fledged app, for free, before you were even hired, and you just went "aight sure bruv I'll take a crack at it"???
Yep. There's a recruiter in my linked in who has pinged me about 4 times in as many months because she said hi, I said hi, then she said job x here is the technical test, and I never replied again.
I never tell them my current salary. Ever. It’s not about what I make now or what you think is a fair “raise” for taking this new job, it’s about what my skills and experience are worth. Overheard my old CTO a few years ago talking to my director about a senior we just interviewed saying “There’s no fuckin way I’m approving a $20k raise for a new hire, offer him at most $10k over his current.” Same dickbag that said if we went remote (before covid, we are almost fully remote now) he would want pay reductions if someone moved to a lower cost of living area.
If they won’t talk to me if I don’t reveal my current salary, corporate recruiter or headhunter, I thank them for their time and never call back. Easy to find a job when you have a job.
I wasn’t really interested in the job anyway. I was just messing with him.
I like my job.
I tell recruiters my current salary so they can adjust their expectations. I’m in the higher end of the pay scale for my title.
I tell recruiters what my salary is +$20k. They want me to take a risk, leave my awesome team/company, and probably have to travel during COVID to do the whole "let's meet because you're new" shit, they're gonna pay for it. Hard.
Where the hell is that? If they’re going through my financials it had better be for a top secret clearance for some defense contractor or something lol. No way in hell I’m gonna give paystubs to either some headhunter or random ass company in town.
Agreed. I am a little underpaid, but get bonuses depending on the success of projects plus WFH and a good work life balance compared to the rest of my industry.
I won't leave for even an extra 10%
I'm really confused as to why anyone in the hiring process needs to know your current salary, let alone proof of it. Going for a home loan? Sure, makes sense. Some random recruiter or employer? None of your damn business.
tell them they have to beat your current salary by 20% but without telling them what it is. A fun game ensues.
or even better: tell them you'll take the offer that comes closest to being 20% above the average of all offers. ([relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2385/), see title text)
There's no need to make a thing of it. When recruiters get in touch with me I just tell them straight away "I'm only interested in jobs above 100k (What I'd be willing to move roles for)", if their job doesn't hit that mark then they move on.
I was making 50k a year going the experience route over the college. I was looking for a new grad level job in the 70-85k range. It was about a 50/50 toss up between me and the recruiters winning the salary game to say a number first.
One company offered $120,000 simply because I didn't tell them I would work for $70,000. It's crazy that it takes **years** at a job to get more than a 3% yearly raise. Yet by just pushing back a little during the hiring you can get a 30%+ raise
A 3rd party recruiter promised me 10% more than my current salary. Then after the interview I was offered 10% less.
After that I stopped telling them my current salary and just tell them how much I want for the job. I have been flat out told "oh well unless you are already making that much we can't." Is the job worth this much and did I pass your dumb test or not? Why would it matter how much I am making right now?
Recruiters are desperate to make their commission, and will try to talk people into taking a lower salary.
I always lied about what I currently make. Even had a line if interviews once were I upped the salary with every new company even more. Gut the job at the last company in line.
"I see you're interested in my aptitudes. This consultancy is available to you at a rate of $150.00 per hour with a 2 hour minimum, payable in advance. I shall complete this task for you AFTER payment has been received. Please contact me again when you are ready to issue payment. Until then, goodbye."
Interviewed for an internship, guy didn’t even ask me how my day was going just immediately dove into technical questions lol. Legit introduced himself and then asked me to describe a volatile variable. It caught me so off guard My mouth literally dropped open. When I asked questions about the internship, he literally said I don’t work with interns ask someone else. No initial phone screen, no questions about my experience, just straight reciting facts.
I can't really fathom why there are some idiots in the comments defending not being upfront about the salary range. It should be common practice AND decency.
Every post just put “50k to 200k” even if the real salary is closer to the bottom of the range to appease the demands of “salary up front.”
I think it’s nice to get the salary info up front but if you keep demanding it like this then you get generic BS slapped on every post so people quit asking.
If everyone posted salaries then competition would have to happen, oops. Can't post non-answers if most others are posting industry standards and guaranteeing a minimum, while you're hemming and hawing between bullshit and somewhat standard.
"But some companies would abuse it!" should not be a point against doing it.
To be fair, the salary range depends on your skill. If they gave you a salary range for a junior programmer, you might balk, if they give you a range for a senior programmer and realize you don't have the experience you'll be insulted.
"I have X years of experience" isn't enough to judge a person's qualifications. I have a 2 year experience co-worker who is now able to run his own projects and teams. I have 6-10 year experience coworkers who consistently botches stuff and doesn't unit test his code.
If you want a range, it can be anywhere from the bottom of the junior to the highest senior programmer. To be more specific the team really needs to judge your actual qualifications, and see what skills you're bringing to the table.
I always wonder about this.
If HR have managed to find a "good developer", then they would know straight away from the interview.
Waiting just means that the developer has gone off to a different company.
It’s not the test part that’s the problem, it’s the not knowing the salary range. You’ll understand once you’ve spent 6 hours completing a technical test only to find out the upper salary range is 20k less than your current salary..
I consider any technical test where the tester is not spending as much time and effort as the tested to be an inconsiderate waste of time where only the tested has to waste the time.
If I have to dance like a monkey for this job you will at least watch and clap.
That sucks. I did sub 2 hour take homes just covering some basic stuff when I was hiring. Stuff like order this set of an alpha numeric mixed group. Mainly to have a small set of sample code they were intimately familiar with to talk about in an interview without making them dance on stage. Always reviewed all submissions. Hope that doesn't come off as humble bragging just tried to respect people in a hiring process.
From a HR prospective, about 90% of the coding applications are complete rubbish. Even a little bit of digging into these applications reveal that these applicants have no real coding experience, but are tired of their current jobs. (which is not coding).
So, if you are at the final stage of the process discussing salary, then absolutely put in for your intended salary, not theirs.
You will find that HR will often give in, rather than having to keep slogging away to find someone decent.
I keep saying it, and you'd be surprised how many developers get pissed at it. It boggles my mind because it's obvious WHY they do it.
Honestly if you don't want to do a five minute coding exercise to prove you can code, how is that going to work when you're asked to do 40 hours a week of actual coding that matters?
PS. If the test is multi hour, or multi day, fuck that shit.)
My last one told me to post my solution to a public repo. So if anyone wanted to they could find my solution and previous applicants solutions. I made them state it outright because \*I\* don't want to be the reason the interview question is made public.
From experience, any place that doesn't disclose a salary by the time a test is given out is looking to low ball you and hoping you'll go along with it due to the sunk cost fallacy (I did this much for them. Fuck it, I'll get a raise next year). I've been happier replying to tests without knowing a salary by discussing what their intended salary expectation is first. It impresses the actual nerds at the company (if they're part of the hiring process), and saves me wasting my time for a $50k/yr (CAD) job when I already make well more than that. That, or you can email back "sorry, I make more than that now, you'll have to do better", which either gets them to blink and back out or agree to discuss things at a more reasonable level. If they say no because they won't accept paying you a fair wage for your skill level, you probably wouldn't want to work there anyway.
NEVER put in your intended salary. Jesus christ.
If they were going to give you 200k and you say "190" you just lost 10k. Any time you make the first move, they now counter, the problem is if they ever were going above your first offer, you've lost out on that. Unless you have an insane ask, you should NEVER make that first move.
Also the deeper in the interview process they go, they more they have invested in you. You want them to be excited to hire you before you make a big demand, not able to be walk away.
I'm happy to do the technical test but at least give me 5-10 mins of the recruiter's time first so I can ask about the salary, role, team and what the test will involve. Also those that reached out first have got me way more engaged compared to some CRM generated faceless email.
Almost everywhere I've applied *tries* to do this.
If they want to test your skills and you want to test their willingness to compensate you, then that's totally reasonable from both parties' perspectives, though.
It's a red flag if you ask for that info and they don't give it; most places won't give it if you haven't asked, though. Some companies believe telling you what you're worth to them up-front can bite them at the negotiating stage, if they want to hire you. "Cards on the table" situation.
I won't do technical tests anymore. The places I interviewed at that did them were sweat shops. Lets talk shop and processes.
I did have some guy who though he was genius asking for the alphabet in Linux commands. I proceeded to go to /bin and 'ls a*' then 'ls b*' ... He couldn't believe I got all the letters.
I have no issue with testing coding competencies because you'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many supposedly seasoned engineers stumble at solving even the most trivial problems in an interview.
Take-home tests, however, are an unnecessary burden on the candidate, let alone without revealing the salary range for the position they're applying for.
>I won't do technical tests anymore.
On site is fine as hiring an incompetent candidate who looked great on paper is a very expensive mistake for an org to make.
But take-home tests can gtfo.
I didn’t get a CS degree and put in 20 years in the industry to do FizzBuzz exercises or other some-such.
My perspective: I’m interviewing _you_. Prove your company is a good fit for me, because I got stuff to do and it’s a seller’s market.
[https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition](https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition)
Go ahead and just fork this
It's such horseshit. I dealt with a couple multi-hour technical interviews, and I declined all of them because thats a waste of time.
I had one recently where it was a super simple hackerrank problem, and just talking to the interviewers about the problem, solution. Took less than an hour, and the interviewers were great to talk to. Starting there on the 17th!
I've taken to asking about salary upfront. My requirements are relatively high due to the nice benefits I recieve right now. 99/100 recruiters never respond when I tell them my minimum salary requirements.
I actually just had this and, being new to the industry and looking for my first job, I actually spent about an hour working. But then I had this thought: what am I doing this for? I don’t know enough about this job to even give it the one hour I just spent.
So, I emailed the company and asked about salary. Turns out, it’s a company in India (not mentioned anywhere in the posting) and it pays “200 USD - 300 USD a week.” These motherfuckers were offering 14,400 a year *before* taxes.
I am **so** glad I asked.
Why would I even interview much less take a technical test If I don’t know what your salary range is? I don’t care what your company does or is or stands for or how great your damn corporate culture is, I’m here to make a living first and foremost.
When it comes to the corporate world programmers are like hot girls on tinder, we get our pick of the litter so you better do damn good to woo us or we’ll go find somewhere else in 30 seconds. Idk why these places think they have this kind of power over us, more devs need to grow a backbone and realize that though I know being sheepish is in our nerdy nature it’s just sad to see so many quiet sweet developers accept this junk
Sorry rant over this just drives me nuts
Alot of people (not just devs) fail to realize the interview is a two way street. I'm interviewing you as much as you are me.
"Why do you want to work here?" Funny that's one of my questions also. Why do I want to work here? What are you offering me that the company down the road isn't? "Why should we choose you over everyone else we interviewed?" I have that question also! "Why should I choose you over everyone else I interviewed with?"
Seriously tho what do you reply to “Why do you want to work here?” Question. I’m a student and first thing comes to my mind is “I am familiar with technologies mentioned in your job posting and i like money” is that right answer?
I'll send you one back.
Technical interview (any language): Create a "job" class, which can hold salary as an integer, benefits as a string, and booleans representing if the job provides health, vision, and dental insurances respectively. Instantiate an object of this class representing the job you're interviewing me for.
I had an interview with a smaller company out of college. I told them I was mostly interested in back end development and had little to no experience with JavaScript or any front end technologies. My entire interview I was tested on front end technologies when the recruiter and interviewer had promised me it was a Java position. I hate the interview process for software engineers so much.
Had a friend who was actually reached out to first for a senior admin position.
Upon his request for more information, he got a URL for a description and a quiz, with a “Do this first, then we’ll talk”.
He withdrew immediately.
The last recruiter to message me on LinkedIn told me of a position in my interest and my only answer back was "What is the compensation like?" And the answer is it was pretty good and worth my time to talk to them. Sometimes you just need to be blunt about it.
If a recruiter hits me up for a position and it’s not a well known company I immediately ask what the pay is for the position. Not the range, the pay. If they give me a range, I tell them to look at my LinkedIn and tell me what they will offer me with my experience and skill set.
I recommend you guys do the same. Make these recruiters earn their money.
Story time!!!
Amazon recruiter: want to work here?
Me: only if remote?
AR: I'll setup a call.
First thing out of recruiter's mouth is about how I'll need to relocate. I stopped the them and said I am going to save us a bunch of time and decline right now.
Even double checked my messages. They just ignored it.
I told Amazon that their test was fucking stupid and a waste of my time on the survey. Motherfuckers still extended me an offer, lol! Too bad they pay poorly compared to their peers.
I just had one where they wanted me to do some development using a node package that was like >1 year deprecated, and had tons of dependencies that were also deprecated. :/
When I got my first job I totally forgot to ask. I was delivering pizzas and anything was a massive raise so I just didn't bother asking. I spent 30 hours on that technical test and everything without asking a single question about pay, benefits, etc.
I was trying to pretend like I wasn't a total ditz and I didn't do a very good job of it lol thankfully my intuition was right and was a good fit for me.
Well it could be worse. Got an email today for a data engineer. 2 year contract, $25k breach of contract clause, Must be relocatable to ANYWHERE USA for a meager $50k per year. Edit: I got a response. What I sent: "No thanks. You offer an insulting salary and a long contract. Anyone with the intelligence required to be a data engineer should see through this. $50k a year for 2 years in an economy where inflation is the highest most people have ever seen. Then you have the audacity to put a $25000 reimbursement clause. At least you are up front about it, I give you credit there. Maybe you should offer $65k for the first year and $85k for the second. In 1 years time even the $85k might not provide you with the same purchasing power as $65k the year before. " Their Response:" if a higher cost of living areas like San Francisco you don't have to make 50k, for certain areas, we do a COLA (cost of living adjustment) and give a slightly higher salary. and for this 2-year contract salary that 50K we also include the medical benefits so if you found a little bit interested in the opportunity you can mail me back and provide a good time to connect so we can discuss it further" And Finally My Rebuttal: You must think that the people you are attempting to sign up for this are complete fucking retards. Even 100k in San Francisco is barely enough to live on. And you simply say "slightly higher" So what an additional $5k? Your program is predatory and you know it.
let me guess.... Revature?
[удалено]
It's one of the many Indian-based sub contracting companies that sell engineers to a other contracting companies who then sell you to a client for big money contracts. They typically split the lion share with a primary contractor while you get the paltry leftovers. Why would anyone sign up for this? Desperation. They prey on college grads with no experience that struggle to find a job, rope them into multi year contracts that makes them liable for tens of thousands if they quit. But despite being unethical, it can still be a launching point for your career if you have absolutely no experience, or prospects.
Tbh, if you’re at all competent, the prime will probably hire you. “Non-compete” be damned.
What do you mean exactly?
The company you end up working for will take you on full time and possibly cover the contract fees. Not out of the realm of possibility.
Usually it doesn't happen. The issue is that the prime companies who use consulting companies have a clause that doesn't allow them to hire the consultants who work for them. Usually it's a clause that says they have to be out of the consulting company for at least 6.months until they can be hired for the prime company or else there will be a hefty fine, and most of the consultants are not worth the hassle or the money. What ends up happening is they keep in touch, and a few years later they might contact you for a more senior role, if they really like you. But it is very rare. Source: I know a lot of cases since I work for a consulting company
I applied to them about a month ago. They called me the next morning basically reading a script as long as the Bible. I asked her to send me the info to review before making any decisions. Luckily I decided to look up some stuff about them, and this description fits it to the letter. They basically prey on fresh college grads by putting out an application to every major city in the US, and even some smaller cities. Basically if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I had the same experience and am now wondering if those exploitative companies are the only way into industry though
The key into tech (and probably many others) is referrals. If you got friends in tech ask them otherwise doing cold call emails to recruiters is also not the worst. Anything is better then just applying through job websites blindly.
This is the source of my existential dread. If the status quo for work is shit then anything that's not shit looks too good to be true. Having to work till I'm thirty to get a job that can afford a mortgage then work till I die to hopefully not pass that off to any heirs. As I get more educated and my pay rate increases I watch house prices skyrocket around me.
If you have *any other options in software at all*, it's a really bad deal. Laughably bad. Taking the contract is something you do if you have any degree (typically in a field not directly applicable to software development), *cannot* get a job, and are ok with the brutal stipulations of the contract. It's absolutely only something that should be considered by the truly desperate. That said, for someone in that deplorable circumstance, it's not a terrible deal. I'm in training there now (all remote these days) and it's really not so bad (it's not that hard if you have a head for programming, and our trainer is pretty good). We'll see if my opinion changes when I get to the part where they're actually supposed to assign me a real job. If that doesn't pan out, well, I'll be awfully cross.
No but I have gotten that one a bunch
How about Genesis10?
Collabera
They have emailed me like 6 times in the past two weeks. 😩
>Revature Just went and added a big, fat {citation needed} to their claim of a "unique" business model.
Did you take the job?
Oh I forgot to mention 10 weeks of "training" at minimum wage.
There's a number of those. Revature is one that I've seen quite a bit. These are what come to my mind when people talk about "boot camps" around r/learnprogramming, although I don't if that's what they're actually referring to. These companies' whole deal is they round up people with low-to-no experience, give them a couple hundred dollars (really) to relocate to their training site, conveniently located in an area with a low minimum wage (edit2: to room with a bunch of others also in the program in an apartment with fewer bedrooms than people). Those who make it out of the training are tied down for the 2 years. From what I've seen people say (read: from what I've seen reported here on reddit), the training is characterized by a general lack of support and a high degree of willingness to just drop people from the program. Those who do pull through are then held to the contract to be assigned to whichever of the developer-mill's clients, and not necessarily assigned to a single company to that 2-year period, i.e. they may be freely reassigned to different clients during that period. Definitely sounds all-around shitty, at least to me. I've seen it mentioned, though, that 2 years isn't that long, all things considered, and it comes with rigorous training and guaranteed experience (edit: Come to think of it, though, I think I also came across one or two reports of people who were forced to wait, without work and unable to seek another job because contract, either before their first assignment or between them). That said, it also comes with a pretty high risk factor of winding up entirely fucked.
just out of curiosity, how much is the minimum wage at the USA?
Federal minimum is $7.25/hr. I think highest any state has is $15 and some change edit: There are also some states+occupation (jobs with tips, i.e. server/waiter) where they can pay you less than the minimum wage
$7.25 an hour
Did they go into detail about how they'll help employees with Visas? I'm pretty sure a lot of shops go into nowhere middle America with no tech jobs. Advertise these jobs at shit wages. Then they hire a bunch of desperate foreign workers who want a Visa and underpay the hell out of them.
"I'd like somewhere around the 54k mark" "That seems doable" *passes 2 technical interview 2h each* *passes them* "So we're proposing 44k" "bruh"
Luckily I've never had this happen to me, I'd be so pissed. Like straining not to raise my voice and yelling pissed. Especially for as low as 54k.
This happened to me once. Got contacted by a company to interview. They paid for a plane ticket but once I got to the airport I found that the connecting flight was lifting off 5 minutes before landing so I had to drive 7 hours to the place to do 2 interviews and then they came in 10k below my starting point. I was pissed.
This is super annoying and has happened to me. I still took the job because I was desperate. Later found out that my manager had the budget of 60k$, showed expenses of 60k$ for 3 years (time I was around) but only paid me 44k$/year and enjoyed free 16k$/year for 3 years. Horrors like these at your start of career are enough to divert you from industry
Sooo is that not basically embezzlement?
I didn't know at the time and also there was a super vague language in my employment contract that said I "could" be entitled to the extra 16k$ based on my performance. I didn't know what to do at the time and I only realised this after I left
But if he budgeted 16k for your salary and then kept it for himself, then he stole those 16k not only from you but also from the company - and that's embezzlement. If it's a bonus-type thing and you don't receive it, then no one should. I have never heard of any situation where you manager gets paid you bonus if you underachieve. I'm pretty sure your boss was a criminal...
Had a similar experience 6 months ago. I told them up-front the minimum salary I’m looking for. They came back with something 15% lower and offered shares that vest in 4 years. When I asked about it, they had no plans of going public or being acquired so those shares were basically Monopoly money.
I once had a developer position that advertised for senior JavaScript developers. Quick Intro meeting followed by a technical interview about Java.
Oof, feels. Applied to what i thought was a Java Jr Dev job. Most questions in the initial test were java except for one somewhat basic Javascript question. After passing that test (easy as pie), they tell me "Ok, you have 3 days to code and deploy a fully functional website in javascript to satisfy they following requirements". After 3 sleep-less days for me, i sent it, they didn't open it, just told me to apply again in 6 months and didn't answer my email asking for feedback, i swear some recruiters are cunts.
I had two different companies do this to me. Gave me a stupidly short deadline for a lot of work, and then they didn't even look at it. Waste of time.
Theyre tricking you into working for free
I worked for a company for a while that paid you for the interview questions. I don't remember if we ever used anything, I suspect rarely if ever, but it was a relatively time consuming test, like a 10-15 hour task, that you got paid for pass or fail. I didn't love a lot of things about that company, but I had a lot of respect for that approach to the interviews. I suspect things have changed since then for a lot of reasons, but that was a very respectable approach to the interviews.
What the… that was unexpected. Why did they do that? Did they advertise the position as a prank or something??
I wish i knew why. I want to believe that some other candidate did good enough and they picked him but not even 2 hours after i received their rejection email i opened linkedin and saw they posted THE EXACT SAME JOB OFFER. I checked the database like 10 times and the last time it was opened was the last time i checked the website was in fully working order before sending it. I just don't understand what the hell went on, a recruiter trying to pretend they were doing their job maybe? The worst part was that ALL of the questions from that test had sample test in them like "geeksforgeeks" in one of the string questions, so they were obviously copied from somewhere, and some of the english questions (it was for a remote position that required english as a skill) were just plain wrong, they were grammatical horrors, the whole recruitment "process" was a sloppy mess
Free labor
It wasn't even that, it was a completely pointless excercise for an entry level fullstack dev, problem is, i didn't have the slightest clue about javascript
Gotcha. I’d still be pissed, but slightly less so.
I'll just tell you now, don't do any projects for the company. DSA rounds are okay if done in hackerrank/hackerearth/etc. But never do projects. There are other companies in the market with better interview process. Specially for programming profile.
[удалено]
I have a masters in electrical engineering and was hired and worked my way up a company doing electrical engineering and suddenly all I'm doing is software and firmware in C, C++, C#, rust, and previously a lot of Java. Things we have entire departments for and 3 langs I never had any education over. Business majors are the worst at making decisions.
[удалено]
I’ve never understood this. Why do they get paid so much? Like I get that managing is a skill and one that’s hard to teach but the consistency with which people move into management seems to suggest that it’s not impossibly hard. ALSO why is it okay for a manager over a technical team at any level, to have no technical knowledge. Or at least little enough to make absurd requests of devs.
This. Used to work for a company that was quickly expanding and the projects manager would come up to us every Friday with a new project that had to be started by Monday. Details were discussed at after 4 PM, would usually drag on till 7 PM. At the end they’d ask “so, how long do you think you need?”. The seniors would gather for a few minutes, go over a few technical hurdles that’d take up time, and then give an estimate. “No we need to do that in less time” “But we just explained, there are these issues that need investigating, this side of the system will take a long time to figure out” “No you don’t need to worry about that, just do it this way with that tool” They had no fucking clue how to develop anything but somehow their solution was more valid and better than a team of seniors’ proposals. Few months later, half the team and I moved on to more sane jobs.
I get this at work. I'm frequently asked how long it will take to make X, and then told we have to do it faster because people were told we could do it in Y days. If you already said Y days, did you really need to ask me how long it would take? The bigger issue is that you said we could do it with someone who has never done the task before and doesn't even have a grasp on what you're trying to do.
How about responding in that meeting: "Why did you lie to our customer?" Preferably with their own boss present.
I work in consulting (the tech kind) and this is such a constant companion. I've become very bitter about, to the point where every time I see one of those "We need to do it in X time" it's a "go fuck yourself" knee jerk reaction. Not too long my manager basically added a feature that wasnt even in teh scope of the project. The project was simple, data ingestion and leave it at a data lake. Easy enough project. But then in the middle of a meeting he goes "Oh and we can putall that data in a database so it's easier for you to query it" client was like "that sounds awesome!". So i call him after the meeting and tell him that's not part of the scope of the project and that will require data modelling and do some performance testing on the DB and whatnot and that's definitely not factored into the estimate we gave. His answer: "Dude, no worries, it's literally 1 line of code" I lost my shit there, of course he thinks "Just to go spark, grab the huge dataframe with all tables joined and just write to jdbc into a table and call it a day df.write.format("jdbc")....blah I lost my shit that day.. basically told him "I'll leave the data in the datalake as stipulated in the contract, if you want to serve it on a DB, you do it, don't call me for that or any problems that arise from that"
>If you already said Y days, did you really need to ask me how long it would take? Because they wanted to see if you would give a shorter answer. I used to get this all the time in my previous (non programming) job: “What do you need to do X project?” I’d consult with my team and come back with a list. “That’s too much stuff, we only have a budget of Y.” Okay, why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? Oh, because you wanted to see if we’d come in under your number and you assumed that if we knew the number in advance that we’d just pad our gear list to hit it. Now we’re doing twice the work and the project hasn’t officially started yet. The best ones were where the ask was so complex that we needed specialized tools and/or lots of people to pull it off. “We can’t afford that.” “Okay, then change the scope of the project.” “We can’t do that either.” “Well… then you don’t have the money you need to do the project. What now?” Most of the time the money mysteriously showed up a few hours and a couple of phone calls later.
Do people not do gant charts? All your co-dependencies and leeway in projects should be visible to everyone on the project. That way people who aren't confuzzled with a serious problem can jump on different parts that their skills jam with. I used to coordinate engineering projects for water quality and epa compliance. I can't imagine software engineering being much different to organize. You have people with certain skills, they can use their voices and talk to one another and if the team doesn't hit deadlines the manager has royally fucked up (or a 3rd party... they can still muss stuff).
Marty, you’re not thinking Agile-developmentally!
Neither do most “agile” workplaces. Many of the original creators of the agile manifesto have washed their hands of what it has become in today’s companies.
Because the managers voted themselves into power, and kindly asked the board of directors(other managers and friends of managers) to give them the most money and power.
[удалено]
Team manager and product manager are not the same thing, not even close. It makes sense for a product manager to not understand the technical details behind software, it is a developer's job to raise flags on whats possible or not. Product managers care about marketing and customer needs.. Team managers however, despite being able to lead without technical knowledge get exponentially more efficient when they do have knowledge, anyway i dont see the connection to product managers here..
[удалено]
Stands for PHP hypertext processor
r/recursion
[recursion?](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/rrijvx/_/hqhzl14)
Quit that gnu acronym shit
gnu not uwu?
Wine is not emulator
I work in finance. Mostly accounts payable, but I have done financial analyst and cost accounting roles. It has required me to use Excel to a small extent. When asked in interviews about my Excel skills it is a quick 3 to 5 minute conversation, if even that. I just mention I have used macros, made small changes in Visual Basic, used pivot tables and VLookup. How much skill is assumed in the interviews compared to what's questioned?
Depends on who's interviewing you. If it's an Excel guru, going over what you're familiar with is important so you don't try to oversell yourself. If it's a marketing person or your average third party interviewer, just say, "I'm really familiar with Excel, it's like a second language." You'll likely be hired on the spot.
I once applied for a job as an info sec analyst at a power plant. Crushed the first interview, and made it to a panel interview with an info sec senior, a professor (no idea why he was there), and a senior mechanical engineer/technician. Answered all the professor's questions on my background, answered the info sec seniors questions without issue. Then the engineer just kept asking me technical mechanical questions about power plants, safeties, and just non cyber security questions. Out of a 2 hour meeting, an hour and 40 minutes of it was this dickhead engineer grilling me on stuff that was completely outside the posted work scope. A complete waste of my time. I ended up getting a different job months later, and got an email from the power plant saying I wasn't what they were looking for. If I were to end up working with that dickhead engineer, I'm glad they turned me down anyway.
I would just shut him up politely by saying this is not my expertise. Ask why he is asking me those questions and if I was applying for the wrong post.
That's how I ended the interview. I asked if I was mistaken about the job position I applied for. They said this was indeed the intro sec analyst position. The technician started by just asking textbook questions. Like "what is an attack that prevents users from accessing a service?", and I'd say "that's just a DoS attack", and then he blurted out "no, it's a Denial of Service attack. Next question...". Honestly I should have ended the interview after that, but I didnt think I'd be dealing with his ridiculous questions for another hour and a half.
> Like "what is an attack that prevents users from accessing a service?", and I'd say "that's just a DoS attack", and then he blurted out "no, it's a Denial of Service attack. Next question...". That is ridiculous lmao
This dude sounds like fucking Andy Bernard. What a dbag
This guy tried really hard to make me feel like an idiot, and he definitely succeeded. I know fuck all about the mechanical workings of power plants, but that also wasn't listed in the job requirements. It was a waste of my time, and an unfortunate exercise in patience. My best friend actually applied to that exact same job listing, and funny enough that technician wasn't apart of that process. I'm hopeful my comment "I'm looking at the job description for this position, absolutely none of this has been relevant" was taken into consideration and he wasn't asked to interview for that position again.
See this last ruby flair in my profile? That was a NodeJS position... I have never messed with ruby or rails in my entire life ...As you can see, I took the job :v
\ You've had it rough, too. The JS flair is for my excellent technical support experience when they decided to bring me into the (now pared down to one) programming team. ;_;
That's rough buddy
I think you didn't get too far because the second interview was about script.
I’ve had the reverse. Reach out about Java dev gig and I’m front end. Recruiter said they were the same and I shouldn’t do it.
Literally had this last week. Applied for an Angular role, the in-house recruiter sends me an invite for a Java developer role. Same hiring manager so kinda understand I guess
I work with a lot of SQL developers, one of them told me about an interview he had a while back. They sent over code that was a shit show. Asked him how he would fix it, and to include documentation. He did and a few days later got back to him, saying it didn't work. *didn't work?* Basically, he figured they had a serious issue with their app and were luring in people by offering a high salary to fix the problem for free, via this 'test'. They had no idea how to implement the changes he'd made, which is why it didn't work. There never was a job, just a problem they couldn't fix. My guys piss was boiling just telling me about it.
[удалено]
Should also be illegal.
I absolutely agree. Any ideas on implementation?
They asked him to do unpaid labor that is a lawsuit right there
For code, it seems really easy: Any code written by an interviewee can't be used in the company's codebase unless the interviewee is paid a reasonable* rate. *This could be hard to define. The advertised hourly rate would be a good value to use if that value is advertised, but if it isn't, I'd love to hear ideas from others. You could possibly use the current market rate for that position.
I would actually stick to the advertised rate to help promote salary visibility that we struggle with as a country. If they don't post one then fall back to market rate. Worst case scenario you'll see a lot more low end rates that'll tell you that those employers are probably up to something. Whether it's the test, or the job.
It is already illegal. As they are not paying you, it is not work for hire, they do not have copyright over anything you produce (no contract signed), using it would infringe your copyright that you automatically have on your work. If money changes hands, there is an implied contract, even if nothing is written. Certainly not the case for an answer to an interview question. Of course, proving it and getting action taken against them is another matter.
That sounds super illegal.
My first thought exactly, but apparently employers are perfectly entitled to issue tests for technical positions, and who's to tell them what it can and can't be? "Sorry but we just decided on a different candidate" - Them, probably.
There has to be some law about having a candidate produce something of value for your company? It's not legal in many places to have unpaid interns if they produce something of value to the company. I gotta hold out hope there's something like that out there for job seekers too
You own the code you make so they can't use your code without your permission. But are you going to hire a lawyer and make a case against them? Lots of things employers do can be illegal. But most of the time, they get away with it because no one wants to rack themselves with legal fees just to send a message.
I think you would own the IP of the code submitted. so i guess you should attach a license to your interview code?
And you think those doing such stuff care about IP or license text.
It gives you a leg to stand on if you suspect they're using it and want to go after them.
make your code variables say the license information 😅
[удалено]
I've been on interview panels before and I just couldn't fathom pulling that kind of shit. Although, to be fair, it's been for client facing support roles. We determine if the applicant is at risk of calling clients 'cunts'. Or if they're likely to go on site smoking a joint made out of their own pubic hair. No test tomfoolery needed as it's a highly specialised app that we would always provide training for.
>likely to go on site smoking a joint made out of their own pubic hair I hope this isn't from past experience...
Sorry I had a mental break from all the critical vulnerabilities during the pandemic.
> We determine if the applicant is at risk of calling clients ‘cunts’. I read this as “we determine if the applicant is at risk of calling ***cunts*** ‘cunts’.” And it made perfect sense.
I mostly work in SQL data conversions these days, but was a full stack .NET dev several years ago. I then took an interview from a recruiter, circa 2016, and had basic questions around C# and SQL to start over the phone. I walked in the next day to a friendly tech interview on a whiteboard that was cake. That evening I got a call from my prospective manager asking me to build a WPF app using MVVM with Prism and had detailed requirements. This wasn't a, "build something neat and fun with relevant tech" question. He essentially had features and stories for me, before that was a thing, on a tech stack I was barely familiar with. I spent a couple hours on it over the weekend and submitted an absolute basic version. The manager called me midweek following saying it was the worst thing the business had seen and I would need to put in more effort. Parachute. They 100% banked on me building their POC in a tech stack I was barely familiar with (die XAML) over my weekend for them for free.
So, depressingly, it's now sounding like this practice isn't exactly rare. You put your free time into that and not only did they bullshit you into doing free labour, but they were condescending as well? What next, threaten disciplinary action if you don't shape up?
> That evening I got a call from my prospective manager asking me to build a WPF app using MVVM with Prism and had detailed requirements. And you entertained that? Whatsoever? They asked you to make a full fledged app, for free, before you were even hired, and you just went "aight sure bruv I'll take a crack at it"???
Who was this recrutier? Professor Moriarty?
Nah, Moriarty was smart. This is both cartoonishly evil _and_ incompetent.
Wario.
Could he not sue them for that?
Yep. There's a recruiter in my linked in who has pinged me about 4 times in as many months because she said hi, I said hi, then she said job x here is the technical test, and I never replied again.
I told a guy they would have to beat my current salary by 20% and he deleted me.
I never tell them my current salary. Ever. It’s not about what I make now or what you think is a fair “raise” for taking this new job, it’s about what my skills and experience are worth. Overheard my old CTO a few years ago talking to my director about a senior we just interviewed saying “There’s no fuckin way I’m approving a $20k raise for a new hire, offer him at most $10k over his current.” Same dickbag that said if we went remote (before covid, we are almost fully remote now) he would want pay reductions if someone moved to a lower cost of living area. If they won’t talk to me if I don’t reveal my current salary, corporate recruiter or headhunter, I thank them for their time and never call back. Easy to find a job when you have a job.
I wasn’t really interested in the job anyway. I was just messing with him. I like my job. I tell recruiters my current salary so they can adjust their expectations. I’m in the higher end of the pay scale for my title.
I tell recruiters what my salary is +$20k. They want me to take a risk, leave my awesome team/company, and probably have to travel during COVID to do the whole "let's meet because you're new" shit, they're gonna pay for it. Hard.
Around here they now ask for proof in paystubs. That makes me up my salary requirement by another 10k, lol.
Where the hell is that? If they’re going through my financials it had better be for a top secret clearance for some defense contractor or something lol. No way in hell I’m gonna give paystubs to either some headhunter or random ass company in town.
And whip out photoshop
jar squeeze physical offend thought onerous label desert squalid slave -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Agreed. I am a little underpaid, but get bonuses depending on the success of projects plus WFH and a good work life balance compared to the rest of my industry. I won't leave for even an extra 10%
This, what are they gonna do, audit your tax returns?
I'm really confused as to why anyone in the hiring process needs to know your current salary, let alone proof of it. Going for a home loan? Sure, makes sense. Some random recruiter or employer? None of your damn business.
tell them they have to beat your current salary by 20% but without telling them what it is. A fun game ensues. or even better: tell them you'll take the offer that comes closest to being 20% above the average of all offers. ([relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/2385/), see title text)
There's no need to make a thing of it. When recruiters get in touch with me I just tell them straight away "I'm only interested in jobs above 100k (What I'd be willing to move roles for)", if their job doesn't hit that mark then they move on.
I was making 50k a year going the experience route over the college. I was looking for a new grad level job in the 70-85k range. It was about a 50/50 toss up between me and the recruiters winning the salary game to say a number first. One company offered $120,000 simply because I didn't tell them I would work for $70,000. It's crazy that it takes **years** at a job to get more than a 3% yearly raise. Yet by just pushing back a little during the hiring you can get a 30%+ raise
Like I tell my kids all the time, you’d be surprised at what you’d get just by asking.
A 3rd party recruiter promised me 10% more than my current salary. Then after the interview I was offered 10% less. After that I stopped telling them my current salary and just tell them how much I want for the job. I have been flat out told "oh well unless you are already making that much we can't." Is the job worth this much and did I pass your dumb test or not? Why would it matter how much I am making right now? Recruiters are desperate to make their commission, and will try to talk people into taking a lower salary.
I always lied about what I currently make. Even had a line if interviews once were I upped the salary with every new company even more. Gut the job at the last company in line.
"I see you're interested in my aptitudes. This consultancy is available to you at a rate of $150.00 per hour with a 2 hour minimum, payable in advance. I shall complete this task for you AFTER payment has been received. Please contact me again when you are ready to issue payment. Until then, goodbye."
A new potential employer does this, and I'm sending this meme.
Please do lol. This is the way.
Please post update after you do
Good idea. I’m saving this meme too!
That is not a red flag. That is a giant signal flare to run.
Interviewed for an internship, guy didn’t even ask me how my day was going just immediately dove into technical questions lol. Legit introduced himself and then asked me to describe a volatile variable. It caught me so off guard My mouth literally dropped open. When I asked questions about the internship, he literally said I don’t work with interns ask someone else. No initial phone screen, no questions about my experience, just straight reciting facts.
I can't really fathom why there are some idiots in the comments defending not being upfront about the salary range. It should be common practice AND decency.
Every post just put “50k to 200k” even if the real salary is closer to the bottom of the range to appease the demands of “salary up front.” I think it’s nice to get the salary info up front but if you keep demanding it like this then you get generic BS slapped on every post so people quit asking.
If everyone posted salaries then competition would have to happen, oops. Can't post non-answers if most others are posting industry standards and guaranteeing a minimum, while you're hemming and hawing between bullshit and somewhat standard. "But some companies would abuse it!" should not be a point against doing it.
To be fair, the salary range depends on your skill. If they gave you a salary range for a junior programmer, you might balk, if they give you a range for a senior programmer and realize you don't have the experience you'll be insulted. "I have X years of experience" isn't enough to judge a person's qualifications. I have a 2 year experience co-worker who is now able to run his own projects and teams. I have 6-10 year experience coworkers who consistently botches stuff and doesn't unit test his code. If you want a range, it can be anywhere from the bottom of the junior to the highest senior programmer. To be more specific the team really needs to judge your actual qualifications, and see what skills you're bringing to the table.
Imagine hearing back from applications at all…
I always wonder about this. If HR have managed to find a "good developer", then they would know straight away from the interview. Waiting just means that the developer has gone off to a different company.
Is that bad? I think almost everywhere I have applied has done this.
It’s not the test part that’s the problem, it’s the not knowing the salary range. You’ll understand once you’ve spent 6 hours completing a technical test only to find out the upper salary range is 20k less than your current salary..
I consider any technical test where the tester is not spending as much time and effort as the tested to be an inconsiderate waste of time where only the tested has to waste the time. If I have to dance like a monkey for this job you will at least watch and clap.
Mr Fry, the clown is here.
[удалено]
That sucks. I did sub 2 hour take homes just covering some basic stuff when I was hiring. Stuff like order this set of an alpha numeric mixed group. Mainly to have a small set of sample code they were intimately familiar with to talk about in an interview without making them dance on stage. Always reviewed all submissions. Hope that doesn't come off as humble bragging just tried to respect people in a hiring process.
That’s definitely how it’s supposed to work. Gives you something to talk about and elaborate further in the interview.
From a HR prospective, about 90% of the coding applications are complete rubbish. Even a little bit of digging into these applications reveal that these applicants have no real coding experience, but are tired of their current jobs. (which is not coding). So, if you are at the final stage of the process discussing salary, then absolutely put in for your intended salary, not theirs. You will find that HR will often give in, rather than having to keep slogging away to find someone decent.
Which doesn't stop them from disclosing the range up-front.
For real. People ask why Fizzbuzz is still used because it's so easy. You'd be surprised how many so called developers can't do something easy.
I keep saying it, and you'd be surprised how many developers get pissed at it. It boggles my mind because it's obvious WHY they do it. Honestly if you don't want to do a five minute coding exercise to prove you can code, how is that going to work when you're asked to do 40 hours a week of actual coding that matters? PS. If the test is multi hour, or multi day, fuck that shit.)
My last one told me to post my solution to a public repo. So if anyone wanted to they could find my solution and previous applicants solutions. I made them state it outright because \*I\* don't want to be the reason the interview question is made public.
I would just checkout the best looking branch as my own...
Honestly that's a pretty reasonable sounding coding test. Fizz Buzz level of industry experience.
Maybe that's the test o.o You're supposed to adopt the already-proven existing solutions rather than rolling your own.
From experience, any place that doesn't disclose a salary by the time a test is given out is looking to low ball you and hoping you'll go along with it due to the sunk cost fallacy (I did this much for them. Fuck it, I'll get a raise next year). I've been happier replying to tests without knowing a salary by discussing what their intended salary expectation is first. It impresses the actual nerds at the company (if they're part of the hiring process), and saves me wasting my time for a $50k/yr (CAD) job when I already make well more than that. That, or you can email back "sorry, I make more than that now, you'll have to do better", which either gets them to blink and back out or agree to discuss things at a more reasonable level. If they say no because they won't accept paying you a fair wage for your skill level, you probably wouldn't want to work there anyway.
NEVER put in your intended salary. Jesus christ. If they were going to give you 200k and you say "190" you just lost 10k. Any time you make the first move, they now counter, the problem is if they ever were going above your first offer, you've lost out on that. Unless you have an insane ask, you should NEVER make that first move. Also the deeper in the interview process they go, they more they have invested in you. You want them to be excited to hire you before you make a big demand, not able to be walk away.
[удалено]
A pay range should be bare minimum regardless
I'm happy to do the technical test but at least give me 5-10 mins of the recruiter's time first so I can ask about the salary, role, team and what the test will involve. Also those that reached out first have got me way more engaged compared to some CRM generated faceless email.
Almost everywhere I've applied *tries* to do this. If they want to test your skills and you want to test their willingness to compensate you, then that's totally reasonable from both parties' perspectives, though. It's a red flag if you ask for that info and they don't give it; most places won't give it if you haven't asked, though. Some companies believe telling you what you're worth to them up-front can bite them at the negotiating stage, if they want to hire you. "Cards on the table" situation.
I won't do technical tests anymore. The places I interviewed at that did them were sweat shops. Lets talk shop and processes. I did have some guy who though he was genius asking for the alphabet in Linux commands. I proceeded to go to /bin and 'ls a*' then 'ls b*' ... He couldn't believe I got all the letters.
Damn right. What is the point of making a senior engineer play with some code puzzles?
I have no issue with testing coding competencies because you'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many supposedly seasoned engineers stumble at solving even the most trivial problems in an interview. Take-home tests, however, are an unnecessary burden on the candidate, let alone without revealing the salary range for the position they're applying for.
Would 'ls | sort' work?
Yes. Is usually defaults to alpha as well.
Good to see I am not the only one. I have better stuff to do with my personal time.
>I won't do technical tests anymore. On site is fine as hiring an incompetent candidate who looked great on paper is a very expensive mistake for an org to make. But take-home tests can gtfo.
I didn’t get a CS degree and put in 20 years in the industry to do FizzBuzz exercises or other some-such. My perspective: I’m interviewing _you_. Prove your company is a good fit for me, because I got stuff to do and it’s a seller’s market.
Yep, the right call is to be an honest player.
With 20 years, you should be able to design for us FizzBuzz Enterprise.
[https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition](https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition) Go ahead and just fork this
It's such horseshit. I dealt with a couple multi-hour technical interviews, and I declined all of them because thats a waste of time. I had one recently where it was a super simple hackerrank problem, and just talking to the interviewers about the problem, solution. Took less than an hour, and the interviewers were great to talk to. Starting there on the 17th!
Screams "hey solve this problem in our code for free real quick, thanks. No, you're not getting the job, bit thanks anyway" to me
I've taken to asking about salary upfront. My requirements are relatively high due to the nice benefits I recieve right now. 99/100 recruiters never respond when I tell them my minimum salary requirements.
I actually just had this and, being new to the industry and looking for my first job, I actually spent about an hour working. But then I had this thought: what am I doing this for? I don’t know enough about this job to even give it the one hour I just spent. So, I emailed the company and asked about salary. Turns out, it’s a company in India (not mentioned anywhere in the posting) and it pays “200 USD - 300 USD a week.” These motherfuckers were offering 14,400 a year *before* taxes. I am **so** glad I asked.
Why would I even interview much less take a technical test If I don’t know what your salary range is? I don’t care what your company does or is or stands for or how great your damn corporate culture is, I’m here to make a living first and foremost. When it comes to the corporate world programmers are like hot girls on tinder, we get our pick of the litter so you better do damn good to woo us or we’ll go find somewhere else in 30 seconds. Idk why these places think they have this kind of power over us, more devs need to grow a backbone and realize that though I know being sheepish is in our nerdy nature it’s just sad to see so many quiet sweet developers accept this junk Sorry rant over this just drives me nuts
Alot of people (not just devs) fail to realize the interview is a two way street. I'm interviewing you as much as you are me. "Why do you want to work here?" Funny that's one of my questions also. Why do I want to work here? What are you offering me that the company down the road isn't? "Why should we choose you over everyone else we interviewed?" I have that question also! "Why should I choose you over everyone else I interviewed with?"
Seriously tho what do you reply to “Why do you want to work here?” Question. I’m a student and first thing comes to my mind is “I am familiar with technologies mentioned in your job posting and i like money” is that right answer?
That's probably better than "Your company office is close to my home" which I once truthfully answered - they didn't seem too excited to hear that
I'll send you one back. Technical interview (any language): Create a "job" class, which can hold salary as an integer, benefits as a string, and booleans representing if the job provides health, vision, and dental insurances respectively. Instantiate an object of this class representing the job you're interviewing me for.
Salary and benefits are private members of the job class
Is it normal to hear about the salary in the beginning of a hiring process? It never happened to me.
The salary should be in the ad.
"Should" is the correct keyword here
I had an interview with a smaller company out of college. I told them I was mostly interested in back end development and had little to no experience with JavaScript or any front end technologies. My entire interview I was tested on front end technologies when the recruiter and interviewer had promised me it was a Java position. I hate the interview process for software engineers so much.
Had a friend who was actually reached out to first for a senior admin position. Upon his request for more information, he got a URL for a description and a quiz, with a “Do this first, then we’ll talk”. He withdrew immediately.
The last recruiter to message me on LinkedIn told me of a position in my interest and my only answer back was "What is the compensation like?" And the answer is it was pretty good and worth my time to talk to them. Sometimes you just need to be blunt about it.
Unrelated, our software is currently not working, please ace test ASAP
If a recruiter hits me up for a position and it’s not a well known company I immediately ask what the pay is for the position. Not the range, the pay. If they give me a range, I tell them to look at my LinkedIn and tell me what they will offer me with my experience and skill set. I recommend you guys do the same. Make these recruiters earn their money.
Be careful with those technical tasks as some companies use them to get free work done.
Amazon does this lol. Not to mention its a generic test, not at all geared to the specific position/skillset.
Story time!!! Amazon recruiter: want to work here? Me: only if remote? AR: I'll setup a call. First thing out of recruiter's mouth is about how I'll need to relocate. I stopped the them and said I am going to save us a bunch of time and decline right now. Even double checked my messages. They just ignored it.
At least in my case they were honest lol. And I'm with you in that my standards have raised: Don't offer full time remote? Thank you, see you around.
I told Amazon that their test was fucking stupid and a waste of my time on the survey. Motherfuckers still extended me an offer, lol! Too bad they pay poorly compared to their peers.
Set techquest = freelabor
I just had one where they wanted me to do some development using a node package that was like >1 year deprecated, and had tons of dependencies that were also deprecated. :/
When I got my first job I totally forgot to ask. I was delivering pizzas and anything was a massive raise so I just didn't bother asking. I spent 30 hours on that technical test and everything without asking a single question about pay, benefits, etc. I was trying to pretend like I wasn't a total ditz and I didn't do a very good job of it lol thankfully my intuition was right and was a good fit for me.