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Ask HN: Is it reasonable to ask for money for writing a demo app?

5 points by grover_hartmann ↗ HN
Every time I apply to some company for a programming position, the company is always asking me to write an application as a test/challenge.

I already have a GitHub account with some examples of my work, and they can very easily check that I'm able to write code.

The challenges they often want me to write aren't that difficult (sometimes they can be), and it's often something I can do in a week or so.

After the fact and when I'm done with the work (usually a week later), I send them links to both: the git repo (hosted on github) and the app that I've deployed to Heroku (because sometimes they ask for that too), and they send me their feedback, which is usually positive and sometimes negative.

There are times I find their feedback can be valid, in that case I learn from it and move on, but often times the reasons can be unreasonable/absurd (or plain wrong) and it feels that they nitpicked a lot on my work, which can be very frustrating.

So, given that most companies don't have any respect for workers' time, wouldn't it be reasonable to ask for proof-of-payment when they ask for proof-of-work?

I understand many companies would be rejecting me for asking to be paid "so early" and maybe I will miss some good opportunities but at least I wouldn't be wasting my time.

Have you ever went through the same thing?

What did you do?

Thanks in advance.

7 comments

[ 6.6 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] thread
pspeter3
I think it is reasonable to ask for that. I think there is also a question of whether or not you would want to work at a company that doesn't respect your time.
karmajunkie
Ah, yeah, its more than reasonable to tell them you expect to be paid for a weeks work. Now the question becomes whether its actually a week's work or its a couple of hours worth of work that just takes you a week to wrap it up.

For the latter case, I put a time limit on it. If I look at it and I think its about an hours worth of work, I'll just do it. If it looks like a day's worth of work, I let them know that and tell them I'm happy to give them a day rate on contracting and either work on that project or pair on something else, and if they push back I politely decline to continue the process. IME good companies know at the outset that their filter projects are substantial enough that their process includes automatic payment for the day.

wodenokoto
I've never been tasked with programming assignments, but I'd assumed such things would be aimed at a few hours at most. Asking a potential employee to work a whole week seems way out of line.
stylepulse
In this competitive world, is'nt this too much to ask? If you study your competitors, things might get really tough. Certainly, if you want to put an escrow in place, there are loads of options available. But I really doubt the world is gonna welcome a paid test drive system, unless you are selling a Tesla!
grover_hartmann
I'm selling more than just a Tesla, my time is as valuable.
neurocline
Do you have companies asking you to do something that they expect will take a week? I've never heard of that in a job interview. That said, I have interviewed hundreds of candidates over the years, and my typical take-home request is something like "write this subset of checkers, spend at most 4 hours on it". I've seen other take-home tests where it seems like the expectation is 8-16 hours of work. But never 40 hours of work.

For you to be able to charge for your time, it needs to be that you're writing something useful to them, that they can use - e.g. temp work, spec work, whatever you call it. I've often toyed with that idea to see what the results would be, but never did that.

You should not expect to be paid for work that's not useful to the other party. If they have unreasonable expectations about the time you should spend on proving yourself to them, politely inform them of this; and if they don't change, move on.

It would be interesting to survey hiring companies and get a better idea of what the common and accepted practices are. It's on my to-do list.

WheelsAtLarge
Don't entertain the idea of working for free. Your time is valuable. You don't need to work for a company that does not respect your time.

If they want a demo of your work have them look at your Github. If they want more give them an estimate of the time required to write it and what your rate is. Don't let them get away with getting your work for free.