41–49 of 49 posts
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!
> Work for free. This is my boilerplate advice for anyone getting started in any industry, not just web developers. Finding someone that will let you work with them is not that hard, if you offer to do it for free. 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…
What if you're self-taught? Getting actual, resume-usable job experience must look better than open source contributions, at least outside of the SF startup/hacker culture.
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.
Thanks, all, for the feedback! I just wanted to clarify on my 'work for free' point. If you have no real-world experience, get some. While you may not get paid at first, the amount of marketable skills you learn will more than pay for that. The point here is not to offer to work for free in hopes that you might eventually get hired (although that can sometimes happen). Rather, the point is that there are a lot of thi…
Thanks for joining the discussion. 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 valuabl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did the author change the article after this comment got so highly ranked here? If you were indeed directly quoting the article, then it has changed quite a bit. 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.
Omni, I did change the title on one of my four points from 'Work for free.' to 'Intern/volunteer', as that was my original intention. I used the phrase 'work for free' to make a point - that when you start out, gaining the best experience often does not go hand-in-hand with a big pay-check. I also added a couple of sentences to reinforce that point. Sorry - I didn't think of that as responding to criticism, but rathe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no reason why those companies can't pay a basic internship salary 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…
"How can I possibly start my whimsical high-risk venture if I have to pay my employees enough so they can afford food and shelter? Why does everything have to be stacked in favor of those greedy minimum wage earners?"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"How can I possibly start my whimsical high-risk venture if I have to pay my employees enough so they can afford food and shelter? Why does everything have to be stacked in favor of those greedy minimum wage earners?"
Always with the us-vs-them mentality. Maybe both sides are risking something. Maybe both sides have something to gain? Those ideas are hard to consider when you only have one perspective in mind.
Advertising the 'work for free' thing pushes towards establishing a dangerous culture, in which slowly all first jobs are expected to be unpaid. And some companies would (and some already do) include these 'free' people in their business model. 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…
I've been seeing that a lot here in Europe, lots of people holding Masters degrees unrelated to IT doing unpaid/underpaid internships. I find the entire idea completely bonkers. 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…
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.
Advertising the 'work for free' thing pushes towards establishing a dangerous culture, in which slowly all first jobs are expected to be unpaid. And some companies would (and some already do) include these 'free' people in their business model. 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…
There is no reason why those companies can't pay a basic internship salary 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…
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.
Advertising the 'work for free' thing pushes towards establishing a dangerous culture, in which slowly all first jobs are expected to be unpaid. And some companies would (and some already do) include these 'free' people in their business model. 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…
You're forgetting all the foosball tables and sodas they have to provide for those free laborers (whoops - 'interns'). Those don't come cheap, you know.
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'.