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Comment by sdoering | Hacker News Reader

Is it just me, or is it just the cultural difference (I am from germany, where we - god be blessed - have laws against these kind of hours)- but if I am expected to work 70h+/week in this thing, I belive, the same would be expected if anyone gets that job.

Well done. slavery seems back at last.

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Is it just me, or is it just the cultural difference (I am from germany, where we - god be blessed - have laws against these kind of hours)

IANAGerman but I lived there for a bit under a year. Don't the Bundeswehr(Army) and some of the big German companies offer a salary during the B.Sc.+M.Sc.in exchange for going to work for them for 10 years? Because this offer seems superior to me.

Actually a better comparision would be an Ausbildung(Apprenticeship). The company would have to really be exploiting them for it not to be better than an Ausbildung.

And by comparision with the apprenticeship system/vocational education system anywhere else, the German system is awesome. I have successfully convinced myself that this is an awesome opportunity and would apply if I was in a situation visa wise to do so.

That's fair. We wanted to make sure people know this isn't just "show up at 9, leave at 5." There are significant outside of the workday tasks like hacking on projects, reading books, meeting with colleagues, and teaching Ruby to kids.

But I'm not chaining anyone to a desk for 70 hours because _I_ don't want to live that way, either.

OK, than I am totally OK with this. Because, if I look at my "work"-week, i do have 70+ hours. 40 - 50 @work, 20 - 25 refurbishing our house, 5 - 10 reading/learning new things, mostly while commuting. and for good measure, I would throw in the occasional (3 times per week+) blogposting.

So I really hope, you can find the right, dedicated person. If it wasn't for the "refurbishing the house" part of my life, I would ask, to join, just for the sake of learning RoR.

5 months to learn RoR is about 4 months longer than needed :)

Wait, you'd get to teach Ruby to kids? I'll be honest, all of the things for the program sound really awesome, but this is by far the most appealing point for me. I remember hearing a saying/quote which went along the lines of "if you can't explain something to someone else, then you don't really know the material", and I tend to agree with this sentiment for the most part.

I think this is a great opportunity you guys are providing for the community, and I look forward to applying to the program.

It won't be required, but I'll strongly encourage people to join me in volunteering with CodeNow, a program teaching dev skills to high school kids.

Check out http://codenow.org/ and scroll way down for the video of me trying to eat a jar of jelly.

German counter point:

Give me something that is _fun_ and/or _interesting_ and I'm happily spending a big amount of time on it - and in fact, I did that in Germany as well, laws or not.

I'm not sure I'd sign something that says "You're required to put in these hours".

The compensation is completely open - I don't know if these people are payed as junior developers or trainees/interns etc.. - I guess that factors into the equation.

My gripe: I'd expect these 24 people to work on actual products (otherwise I'd question the teaching/mentoring method), so to me it seems the company is getting a temporary team, possibly for cheap.

If I'd be younger, w/o a significant other and - well - applicable (I assume this is for US residents only) I'd apply anyway, though...

As said in another comment, I understood a little bit more after another explenation.

I did a lot more hours for projects, that were quite fun for me, while doing everything I could, to make sure our "customers" (as it was an paid event, but in a hobby-environment i wrote the "") had an exeptional time.

So yeah, I'm totally OK, with working long hours. But not, if a boss "just" demands it.

They're being paid. I think the slavery charge is a bit much.

Plus, you don't know the program structure. That may include homework/group sort of stuff in addition to work and instruction. It'll be like 5 months of college with a job. It's no different if you actually calculate the time investment.

18-month commitment required

That's pretty short, no? Get an unparalleled education in modern software development, step into a high-paying job, and we ask you to stay just 18 months?

No guarantee it will be high-paying, and the word "required" implies that at some point in this process you become beholden to your educators. They certainly don't want any applicants taking the paid education and leaving, so I can imagine some print, fine or otherwise, indemnifying a worthy student (one who is offered a job) should they not fulfill this 18-month requirement.

Still sounds better than dumping 4 years and $160K on a normal degree and then finding no jobs afterward.

I've got a friend now who is a cook in a kitchen. I've been trying to convince him to learn Ruby. This is a killer thing for him. He's making like $12/hr now. Even a "bad" paying programming gig will surely beat that.

You're comparing an intensive 5 month apprenticeship to getting a university CS degree. My personal view is that neither will prepare you for a job as well as just building stuff in your free time.

Is the contract published somewhere? What if something unexpected comes up, say their spouse develops cancer and they need to move to another state to get the best treatment possible? Probably a poor example as Living Social would let that person work remotely, but still, it's a contract -- what are the consequences of breaking it? For similar offers, the 'apprentice' simply needs to repay some or all of the cost of the education.

Yep, that's my understanding -- it's basically "we spent $xx,xxx training you, then you left. We think you owe us $yy,yyy."

That being said, it's a company of humans. What good is a developer who's shackled to their desk while a spouse is distressed in another state? None. There will be a way to work it out. We want you to be happy and great at building software, not imprisoned.

This is typically how most top 5 MBA programs get a majority of their students. The applicant will work for a company for 1-2 years, then qualify for an MBA voucher on the condition that the student come back for an additional 2-3 afterwards. In the broad scheme of things, 18 months of work plus only a few months of teaching load (as opposed to 2 year MBAs), is a dream.

To be fair, slave masters where required to feed and put a roof over their slaves. Modern slave masters don't even do that.

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