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Comment by goshx | Hacker News Reader

While I agree that the request to build, deploy and open source the code of a website is a bit too much, I think you are exaggerating a little bit on the why's you wouldn't do it.

"I'm not equipped to do your challenge" - really?

"Engineers aren't different" - again, really?

Rhetorical question: you don't want the job, do you?

I am not sure if the issue is with the hiring process, or with the candidates' ego here. Candidates. Plural. As the article's author doesn't seem to be the only one.

Apparently there is a lot of people that believe they are rockstars and they don't need the job, the job needs them. Challenges like this help to figure out non technical skills as well, like: how committed a candidate is; how much he wants that job.

I'd rather hire a junior that is committed than a senior that is not.

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Apparently there is a lot of people that believe they are rockstars and they don't need the job, the job needs them.

Here's a novel idea: both the candidate and the job need each other. If the job didn't need a candidate, then why are you looking to hire someone new?

Humility goes both ways. So does the arrogance. You reap what you sow.

I'd rather hire a junior that is committed than a senior that is not.

As long as you're prepared to deal with the difference between the output of a junior and the output of a senior, then you're okay. Word of advice, though: you'd best hold on to your own seniors.

Depends on your definition of committed. If being committed to you means taking the better part of a day, weekend, etc. to exhaustively go through a "code challenge" for one job opportunity, that's one thing. For the average job seeker, if you've got ten recruiters that you're in contact with and one of those ten want you to dedicate that much time to their position and the other nine want to put you on the phone with an engineer and bring you on-site, how attractive is that one job? For someone already working more than full-time, probably not very.

I think the long and short of it is that being committed to a job has nothing to do with whether you'll tolerate a code challenge. Being "committed enough" to finishing a task to unlock the gate to actually speaking with a company's engineering team is completely orthogonal to how much you care about what you're paid to do when you have a job.

There are a lot of jobs going around these days. Employers no longer have the luxury to treat prospective hires poorly. This is the employer's problem, not the candidates.

Personally, I've asked potential hires for work product demonstrations. However, two crucial differences: 1) I paid them for their time, and 2) the task was on a real part of our infrastructure, the code they produced eventually being used in production. Everyone was happy with this situation.

I'd say that's a much more fair way to go about it. If you're going to ask someone to do work for you, that should be a paying gig, and it should be a task worth doing. If you're looking for a free sample a public repo or a task that fits within the parameters of a normal interview time would be better alternatives.

You're not supposed to be committed to a job.

When I work for a company, I want to make sure that whatever I am working on will help the company succeed. I want to be part of that success. This is commitment. I am not there just to get the pay check for my 9 to 5 hours and move on to another company because they offered me extra $5 bucks.

If only modern companies had a similar view toward their employees. The fact is, whatever your particular situation, most companies don't return the exuberant loyalty you have for them. Although some have managers who are skilled enough salesmen to make you believe otherwise.

I agree and that is the main reason that made me move on from previous companies that I've worked for. However, I never used this fact as an excuse to care less about the work I am doing.

Hope you own the company, or are higher up in it.

Your boss may like you, but your company couldn't care less if you were hit by a bus tomorrow. Sure, you'd get a mention and a small office party with stale cookies and cheap pizza, but you'd be forgotten within the year.

That only works if the company shares that commitment and wants to share the rewards of that success. In my (admittedly not small-startup) experience, that is not often the case.

This is 2013. You gotta look out for Number One.

I'm sorry, but an employer gets more out of the employee than the employee gets out of the employer. Otherwise the company would not be making a profit. But you know, maths.

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