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Comment by ThePhysicist | Hacker News Reader

When they got started I had a look at the advertised software engineering positions. They openly wrote that candidates must be OK "working nights and weekends without extra compensation". Writing something like that into a job ad (which they stopped doing, probably because they realized it's simply illegal in Germany) seemed really toxic to me, though I guess at least they were honest about it.

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This is really dumb on many levels. They can pull nights and weekends when project needs to be done. But they need to pay for it and it is mentally impossible to do it consistently for weeks or even months. After some time you will just burn out like a flare.

This is how American companies work now. They believe it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, and view fines as the 'cost of doing business'

Employees are a resource to be consumed and replaced in cycle.

People break laws and go to jail. Companies break laws and hit record profits.

Wage theft runs rampant here in the US, every business owner took PPP loans whether they needed it or not.

I'm so thankful y'all are still reasonable humans who see this garbage for what it is and stop it.

I think they will have a very hard time recruiting in Germany. There is certainly no patience for this permanent crunch, anti-union attitude that seems characteristic of Tesla in the US.

It's the same mistake Walmart and initially McDonalds did, they think their usual crap will fly in Europe, and it just doesn't. You need to adapt to the local market's specifics ( it's also why EU based companies have a harder time growing than US based ones - the single market still required a lot of adaptations).

Do it for the mission!

so stupidly ham fisted and fucking entitled as well.

you CAN get people to do this sort of work, and even get them to do it for free... but you have to BRING the team to it, people dont work their best and go the extra step because they're being paid. That sort of work is done by people for love and because the believe in the vision.

Telling people up front thats what you expect... that gets you exactly the wrong sort of people if you get anyone at all.

> you CAN get people to do this sort of work, and even get them to do it for free... but you have to BRING the team to it, people dont work their best and go the extra step because they're being paid. That sort of work is done by people for love and because the believe in the vision.

This is just exploitation, like in any industry driven by passion: film, music, game development and so on.

If you, as a capitalist, manipulate people using their passion to be paid less you are completely morally corrupt.

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