Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

ballardgames.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 114 posts

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#91

Post by chihuahua »

zahlman wrote: post #81

> If we see potential, the first step is always asking the candidate upfront for their expected salary, availability, and whether they want full-time or part-time. Since we are focused on efficiency, we need to respect people’s time as much as our own. Most candidates appreciate it; for example, it immediately filtered out a very qualified candidate whose salary ask was 4 times our budget. I feel like the "respectful…

In fact, for companies of 15 or more employees, this is legally required in job postings in Washington state, where the company from the article is based.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#92

Post by nradov »

chr1ss_code wrote: post #32

"Our take-home lets candidates code." - As a dev, I absolutely hate the practice of such assignments. Every non-junior dev/coder should already have at least some indicators out there showing how they code - GitHub, a personal site or any other resources. For juniors or CS graduates there might be bit of a grey zone, but even then, with how widely available web space is nowadays, there’s really no excuse not to have…

Lol you clearly don't have much experience. Most of the best developers have all of their code locked up in corporate repositories and have nothing they can legally share.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#93

Post by chihuahua »

patja wrote: post #53
edent wrote: post #34

Why not list the salary up front? That reduces the number of people with wildly different remuneration expectations?

They are legally required to include the salary range in the job posting in Washington State.

If the company has 15 or more employees.

If this company meets the conditions so that the law applies to them, you can apply there, and then report them, and potentially collect a few thousand dollars when they get fined by Washington state.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#94

Post by chihuahua »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #37
edent wrote: post #34

Why not list the salary up front? That reduces the number of people with wildly different remuneration expectations?

Yeah, I lose a lot of interest whenever I am asked my salary expectations.

I'd prefer to get that out there early in the process, rather than go through 5 interviews and then find out they're offering half of my minimum requirement.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#95

Post by staticautomatic »

roenxi wrote: post #35

The perspective here is subtly baised - look at the diagram down the bottom and realise that they were always only going to hire 1 person, so all the reasons that they give for not hiring the person are, in fact, not reasons that the person filtered out wasn't hired. They are processes to rank the applicants. If there were more candidates they'd add more reasons not to hire most of them, if there were less candidates…

Eh, kind of. Right now I'm hiring for a role where nobody remaining in my applicant pool is qualified (all have only some of the experience I need) but I'm probably still going to hire one of them. Does that "qualify" them? No. It just means I'm probably going to hire despite it.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#96

Post by joshdavham »

phrotoma wrote: post #27
joshdavham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still consider this a red flag. The company wants me to put time into the hiring process, but they can’t be bothered to do the same. Exactly this. It costs a company nothing to give you a take-home, but it will cost you (the candidate) potentially many hours. On my last job search, I got burned a number of times where I'd work for hours on a take-home only to get ghosted. I don't think they even looked at my solu…

It CAN cost nothing to give a take home, but this is not a requirement. At my previous employer any candidate that made it as far as the take home project was paid for the time they worked on it.

That’s a good distinction. A paid take home is very different than an unpaid one.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#97

Post by jermaustin1 »

andoando wrote: post #86
lone-cloud wrote: post #40

This sounds like an incredibly toxic hiring process and not a company I'd ever want to work for. So you apply for a job and in response they (maybe) email you back asking for your expected salary (great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw) and if you're cheap enough they then ask you to do work on a take home assignment. Everyone here thinks that this is okay and they want to be interviewed this way? "Since we…

Salary expectations should always be the first conversation imo

Should be posted BEFORE the first conversation.

When a recruiter reaches out to me, my first response is my resume and expected hourly compensation (I primarily do consulting/contract work).

I provide different numbers based on whether WFH, Hybrid, or In-office, and for any type of commuting, I figure that out and work it into my day, so if I'm looking for $150/hr, and the commute is 1 hour each way, that is an extra 2 hours per day in the office, if I'm in the office for 3 days a week, that is 46 hours of billable time (to me), but still only 40 to the employer, so my $150/hr becomes $172.50/hr.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#98

Post by bitwize »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #76
bitwize wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For general software engineering, the accepted thought is you're not really an engineer without the use of AI. Because engineering consists of using the right tool for the job, applying best practice, making tradeoffs, and justifying every decision from a technical standpoint. And it's anti-engineering to write the code yourself rather than putting your ego aside and taking advantage of AI's huge productivity gains.…

> For general software engineering, the accepted thought is you're not really an engineer without the use of AI. That is not remotely true. It's not clear to me that there is a consensus, but if anything people are more skeptical than favorable of AI in my experience. And even those who favor AI don't make stark declarations such as "you're not really an engineer if you don't use it", instead accepting that their col…

> And even those who favor AI don't make stark declarations such as "you're not really an engineer if you don't use it", instead accepting that their colleagues have a difference of opinion.

I have heard this exact statement with this exact phrasing from working engineers. When it comes to CEOs and the like, making public pronouncements alongside yes-you-will-be-graded-on-this AI mandates, it's couched in softer terms, like "as a technical company we must use these advanced technologies to maximize productivity and increase our market advantage", but the subtext is still clear: AI refuseniks are not doing their work properly and are irresponsible on the job.

Among the investor set there is a much clearer consensus: if the organization does not use AI they are not maximizing ROI and are being fiscally irresponsible.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#99

Post by amundskm »

preciousoo wrote: post #78
lone-cloud wrote: post #40

This sounds like an incredibly toxic hiring process and not a company I'd ever want to work for. So you apply for a job and in response they (maybe) email you back asking for your expected salary (great way to filter out anyone worth hiring btw) and if you're cheap enough they then ask you to do work on a take home assignment. Everyone here thinks that this is okay and they want to be interviewed this way? "Since we…

> Hi, I’d like to work for your company > Great, state your price and availability If match: > create a simple project( This is toxic to you???

Unless they are paying for the 1 hour of work then yes. If the company wants to know if someone can do something then look at their github or bring them in for an interview. Do not do work for free.

Re: Hiring a developer as a small indie studio in 2025

#100

Post by preciousoo »

amundskm wrote: post #99
preciousoo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hi, I’d like to work for your company > Great, state your price and availability If match: > create a simple project( This is toxic to you???

Unless they are paying for the 1 hour of work then yes. If the company wants to know if someone can do something then look at their github or bring them in for an interview. Do not do work for free.

The take home assignment is to create a web service that changes the color of a cube, hardly anything cutting edge. Do you expect to be paid for coding interviews too?
Post reply on HN