Probation Period: A Blessing or a Curse for Programmers?

The reasoning behind "probation periods" don't pass even the most basic scrutiny.

If a developer is awful the company will fire them regardless of whether or not they're in a probation period. It's not like you suddenly get protection from being fired after 6 months. You get some additional protection after 2 years in the UK ('ordinary unfair dismissal' and statutory redundancy protections; other country's employment laws vary a lot), but even then it's not that hard to get rid of someone. Legally there's nothing about a 3-6 month probationary period that makes any difference.

From the other side a developer will leave a terrible company no matter how recently they started. There is no legal mechanism to stop someone quitting. Probation periods as far as the employee is concerned mean nothing other than accepting a different set of rules for a few months.

The problem with probation periods is they are there in writing but you don't know what to expect. Do they expect to fire half of the probationers? Is it just a formality without even a meeting confirming your continued tenure at expiration? Probably what will happen is you get some comforting words that will not ease your mind.

Most times probation is just a thing in a contract where nobody even mentions it after the time is out, but I've seen some things happen with probation. The first time, my boss hired two sales guys and knew he was only going to keep one. They found this out a few weeks in. Awkward as hell.

Second time, he hired a guy, I started working with him setting up a trading desk. The boss then went on holiday, where he met someone who knew the guy. Rumors came out about him. The boss figured out the probation period hadn't ended yet, so we should just fire him. So he phones home to get the guy who "won" the sales race to do it for him. The lawyer tells him that thanks to the probation clause, he doesn't need to even give a reason to the guy who is being let go. In the meeting, of course the guy says "WTF, give me a reason", and it was just silence. A thoroughly shitty way to treat someone.

Ive been on both ends of the hiring process and probation periods, and they are, IMO, are of absolute necessity.

The fact that there are horror stories, as described by the author, should not hide the fact that a resume (or even a reference) is a shallow metric for a match between the company and the employee.

I've never had any objection to a probation period. However, I'd never enter one that was asymmetric or with reduced pay.