Advice for young developers
newfangled.com
newfangled.com
I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. Perhaps at reduced rate, but never for free. Working for free makes your clients balk when you finally dare to charge.
I like my free time. Free time gives me a chance to do what I want, as I'm young only once. It's not always easy to have some time off when in college / uni, so the time you can make is time you (should) treasure. How you fill that time does not matter, but it should be fun (as that's what free time should be).
The other points I agree with. Building a portfolio is a great way to get at least one foot in the door. Writing code and text is also a very good way to learn to express thoughts (both of which I do too little of, personally), which also helps your future senior to get a reading of you.
With two exceptions; internships via universities (where it is part of your education) and certain kinds of work for non-profits. And even then I am reluctant to work for free.
If you cannot even contribute at least minimum wage worth of value to a company, why bother contribute at all - go spend time on open source or for a charity instead. Or you know, go out and network at events (or bars for that matter).
The other points made in the post are good and relevant. Being able to show off what you have done is always helpful and writing a blog is always worthwhile in my opinion, even if barely anyone reads it (hello my own blog).
I think this doesn't probably apply for students and/or recent graduates, as it would be a way of escaping the typical "I can't get a job because I don't have experience, and I can't get experience because I don't have a job" catch-22.
True, my time is always worth a certain amount (probably higher than I assume), but if I get a tangible benefit out of it, I could assume that I just switched from "I pay you and you give me knowledge and a degree" to "I pay you and you give me experience and a recomendation".
How would someone that just graduated pay rent and food when they don't have a job that, you know, pays them?
Yikes.... I would never advise someone to work for free for a company. If you want to work on an open source project then that's probably a better use of your time.
The problem with free is that it lowers your worth to a company.m
Heck even university co-op terms pay well these days.
Internships are almost always paid now. Even where the internship might qualify to be unpaid, it's cheaper to just pay minimum wage than try to prove you're not extracting value from the intern's labor.
An internship is not employment. It's something a company does that's supposed to benefit you educationally. It's not a way for a company to get free labor.
It took a lot of fight to get labor laws in place in the United States and they exist for a very good reason.
I'm actually looking into working for the whole of July for no monetary compensation. But in return, I expect to learn something from whoever I work with/for.
Most of the time money is good. You can exchange that for many things in life. But sometimes, knowledge is better to have as you can exchange that for (even more) money.
And from an employer point of view, you should not be judged by the size of your pay cheque, but by how much value you actually add to a company.
This is a false dichotomy. With some very rare exceptions, you do not choose between monetary compensation and experience: you need -- and should get -- both.
The bigger the gap, the less money you are likely to make but the more you'll learn. If you get paid nothing, you're basically there to learn (to the value at least the salary you would receive).
Thanks ed209, that's great, and exactly what I was getting at.
My dad is a civil engineer and I don't see him drafting construction plans for bridges and highways in his free time. My mom is a social worker and I won't see her dealing with domestic violence and welfare cases in her free time. Why is it that the modern IT industry expects people to put in massive hours contributing to some useless obscure projects just to be employable? I will tell you exactly why - because it lowers the bar for everyone and screens in for people who are willing to bend over backwards, work 90 hour weeks with no paid overtime, who will never stand up for themselves or have any self respect whatsoever.
There are plenty of professional industries out there (such as finance, medical, aerospace etc) which value software engineers greatly, pay big bucks and don't force people to jump through these kinds of arbitrary hoops.
I have better things to do with my free time (such as spending it with my friends, girlfriend, family etc) and that is exactly why I don't want to work in your shitty little startup. Engineers always complain about being treated like dirt by "the suits", but I can tell you that it's usually other engineers/"hackers" coming up with these kinds of abysmal borderline extortionist hiring practices. This shit won't stop until people just say no and stop linking their Github accounts in their resumes in a supplicatory sycophantic fashion just to be even considered for a position.
Want to contribute to an open-source project? Fine, that's a legit hobby as any other. But let's just stop using that as a leverage in the hiring process.
Shame on the author of the article if he changed it. We can't have a meaningful discussion if you get scared of a little criticism and change the source material.
I appreciate everyone's feedback here. This is my first post on Hacker News, and I didn't expect this kind of response.
I realize that the idea of not valuing one's own time can be dangerous, and lead to a bad dynamic down the road. This is especially true for freelancers. That said, I stand by the point. For a student or beginner, the idea of getting involved with real-world communities, whether its a company you respect, an open-source project you support, or even a non-profit that you believe in, can be very valuable. Sometimes the best way to get involved with these groups, particularly if you have little to offer on paper, is to be creative with how you can help them, knowing that your biggest reward for the contribution will be the experience you gain. I don't see this as being unfair to yourself at all, nor do I see it as selling yourself short.
There is no reason why those companies can't pay a basic internship salary which at least allows you not to work somewhere else to be able to eat and sleep somewhere else than a friends couch (or floor).
And if the company really can't afford that basic salary, I would double question if it's really worth for you to work for them.
You don't know that. Maybe the company is a totally new idea being started on a shoe string that can't afford to pay much of anything.
Maybe the product or project is a "what the hell" kind of project that doesn't really have any revenue associated with it but won't be even attempted without some free or mostly free time.
Where would the open source community be without people contributing to it for free?
Yours is the kind of thinking that leads to the ever-increasing minimum wage, which sounds great at first blush but whose unintended consequence is the killing off of whimsical tough-to-start or high risk ventures while also denying real experience to workers who lack the job skills needed to actually be productive at the required minimum wage.
But honestly, you are talking about a different thing.
If you can't afford to pay much of anything it's fine, as long as, for example, you give me a bunch of shares which would be worth nothing now, but something in case you become a billionaire.
But if you don't want to give anything back for my work, then I tend to think that you are trying to use my time.
Of course there may be a million exceptions to this, and there are. But in my experience those where the exceptions, and the usual case was just a way to get free labor.
I did an unpaid internship that lasted 5 months in South America... when I was 17, because it was needed to get my Electronics Technician HS diploma. Even then, some of my luckier fellow students got a token payment.
I've been working since I started college, and even when underpaid at first, never had trouble finding work. Although I'm a college drop out, I didn't have trouble finding a job in a different continent even before coming here. I'm guessing that we are extremely lucky to be in our industry, as there is no lack of work, even outside of the Bay Area.
The high unemployment rate pushes people to accept them to have at least more experience to use in their following job applications, but basically this created an ecosystem in which there is companies that count of a few employees working for free.
I can also tell you that in most cases the owners of these companies are not exactly starving, so there isn't a real reason why they shouldn't pay for good work.
Fortunately it seems that the startup culture is picking up a little, and hopefully this will improve the situation.
But I agree with you, and here in the Bay we are fairly lucky.
In Europe free sodas are more rare.
In Italy, at least until I left, I had never heard of free sodas at work. But I heard of a lot of free work 'for experience'.
The foosball table is not just for the interns, you know. It's for everyone. And soda is cheap.
So yea, they do come for cheap.
If I would be 20 again and I wouldn't need a salary, then I would probably find a bunch of acquaintances to start a project of our own. Something not necessarily with a prospect of a future. Something fun, with no clients, no deadlines and no managers.
Internships are also great, as interns are usually left to work on fun things. But it really depends on the company you're internshiping with. The big ones are kind of cool for interns and I would prefer them (e.g. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Amazon), even though I wouldn't want to work there full time. I would also never work for free. Ask for a salary, even when doing an internship. If a company wants for-free interns, that's not the kind of company you want to work with.
I did not like the "work for free" advice a lot but I do think that sometimes the only way to work on something that you really want to work on is to give your time and energy to it, for free. I am sure there are people who will not agree with me but I am a big proponent of non-profits (esp the ones who ask for your services, more than money).
Qualified it is still bad advice. The last thing the software industry needs is a hazing period for unscrupulous companies to take advantage of. If you're really lacking in any demonstrable experience then work on a personal project or an open source project until you can show that you know what you're doing. The pay is the same and what you'll have to show for it is just as valuable (if not a lot more) for future employers -- at least the ones you're likely to actually want to work for.
>> "fast-moving, multi-faceted company with real clients"
Before I got into software I built a public relations agency from the ground up. I used to dream in corporate double-talk. Even I don't know what that phrase means.
I also don't think it's easy to get "hired" for no money in most companies, legal issues aside, training people is NOT free and you can't trust and give responsibilities to someone you're not paying. On Europe is common to do unpaid internships as part of your education, but the companies taking you in get money or tax rebates to do so.
I would replace working for free with contributing to an open source project or working to become a maintainer. People have already pointed this out and I wanted to agree!