Tech companies are famous for coddling their workers but after mass layoffs the industry's culture has shifted. Engineers say that getting hired can require days of work on unpaid assignments.
  • @[email protected]English
    100•4 months ago

    This has been ramping up for years. The first time that I was asked to do “homework” for an interview was probably in 2014 or so. Since then, it’s gone from “make a quick prototype” to assignments that clearly take several full work days. The last time I job hunted, I’d politely accept the assignment and ask them if $120/hr is an acceptable rate, and if so, I can send over the contract and we can get started ASAP! If not, I refer them to my thousands upon thousands of lines of open source code.

    My experience with these interactions is not that they’re looking for the most qualified applicants, but that they’re filtering for compliant workers who will unquestioningly accept the conditions offered in exchange for the generally lucrative salaries. It’s the kind of employees that they need to keep their internal corporate identity of being the good guys as tech goes from being universally beloved to generally reviled by society in general.

    • The Dark Lord ☑️
      47•4 months ago

      It’s definitely pro-single person, and anti-parent.

      At least give people an option. Otherwise you’re just hiring people with the most time on their hands.

      • @[email protected]English
        43•4 months ago

        I have worked at two different start ups where the boss explicitly didn’t want to hire anyone with kids and had to be informed that there are laws about that, so yes, definitely anti-parent. One of them also kept saying that they only wanted employees like our autistic coworker when we asked him why he had spent weeks rejecting every interviewee that we had liked. Don’t even get me started on people that the CEO wouldn’t have a beer with, and how often they just so happen to be women or foreigners! Just gross shit all around.

        It’s very clear when you work closely with founders that they see their businesses as a moral good in the world, and as a result, they have a lot of entitlement about their relationship with labor. They view laws about it as inconveniences on their moral imperative to grow the startup.

        • sadreality
          5•4 months ago

          Parasitic behavior is worshipped by fake news and work force is too limp dick to act their wage.

          Anyway, catch these guys in the wild spouting this idiocy and punking them with a few choice words… So much butthurt haha

          They really don’t understand that unless you giving me money, why would I care about your shiti company lol

          They really do think that some random dude should respect them just because ?

      • @[email protected]
        26•4 months ago

        Probably by design, to be honest. Jobs tend to be very anti-parent, especially in US states where FMLA is legally protected.

        I’m fortunate to work for a company that has a culture of prioritizing real life so you can do your best work. Sadly, that’s antithetical to next quarter thinking, so it’s not the norm.

        The dumb thing is (in my experience) parents seem to work harder and stay at companies for longer than childless folks. They’re just shorter on free time and need some basic flexibility to address emergent issues. Not to mention being better at teaching and managing in general.

        • The Dark Lord ☑️
          7•4 months ago

          Right. Before, people would check GitHub, but they found that it didn’t mean that people were better programmers, they just had more free time.

          I’ve seen a lot of people asking which interview method the interviewer would prefer (project or algorithm interview).