

Ask HN: Work for free for 4 months for a $55k job after? - gamechangr

Tl; DR :<p>I have no professional experience as a developer and am being offered a deal to work for free for 4 months in exchange for a 1 year work contract at $55k. Would you do it or just teach yourself?<p>-----------
I&#x27;m a mid thirties Oil Project Manager that is intent on becoming a developer. I have enough money to consider various learning paths. I QUIT MY JOB YESTERDAY! I waited a year to build up reserves ( I feel solid about that choice )<p>I did a Ruby on Rails bootcamp two years ago just to see if I liked it (while employed making six figures at the same time) and am now enrolled in a CS at our local state university.<p>I have an offer to come and work for free for four months and then they will hire me full time as entry level Java developer and have said they will pay $55k. 
I don&#x27;t have much exposure to Java, which seems a little verbose.<p>I considered learning MEAN stacks or continuing with Ruby on Rails, which appears to be fading.<p>In my past I fairly good with math and have taught myself complexed things (Chemical Engineering) and already understand quite a few development principles MVC, OOP, and have build maybe 25 lower level apps on github and have maybe 20 C# homework projects.<p>I kind of wonder if I could beat that on my own?
I wonder if I should focus on Java? Is Ruby on Rails fading?<p>Thanks in advance!
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beagle3
Don't work for free.

Why won't they pay from day 1?

What's going to stop them from saying "thanks, but no thanks" after those 4
months?

~~~
hawkice
One upvote on this comment wasn't enough, so let me expand as well:

Someone asking for free development work, in modern circumstances, is not
someone you should work for, even if they _do_ pay you later. I was a student,
right after the recession hit, didn't have my degree, had to remember a
sentence I didn't understand in case they asked me about the difference
between an inner join and an outer join (because, at the time, I had
absolutely no clue what SQL was, aside from 'database-y'). I, and dozens of
other students like me, were paid more than double minimum wage and given paid
on-the-job training for our admittedly non-expert web development work. And
the market is way better now than in 2009.

~~~
gamechangr
Interesting (upvoting both) Original OP here.

I guess my "heartburn" focused on not being able to learn what I wanted or not
being certain of what I wanted to commit time learning, but you point makes
sense too.

I should find a way to get paid to learn. I can work on that.

~~~
hawkice
If at all possible, invest in learning independently as much as possible. The
tools these days, both free and paid (for almost all price brackets, although
it's hard to beat some of the free resources), for independent study are
amazing.

EDIT: On second thought, if your projects are for real and not just homeworky
projects that no class assigned, you're already extremely well qualified for a
job. I'd spend more time talking to people who have hiring authority (they
tend to make themselves available at hackathons, through email at /hiring
pages, etc.)

Honestly this is all stuff you probably know, but it can be helpful to hear
someone say "yep, that's the important bit".

~~~
gamechangr
By "independently" do you mean not employed by someone?

Or do you just mean self study? For the last five years my job has required
above 60hrs a week, I know that if I get a 30 hour a week commitment with a
company - I will still put my time in on the side to study what I want.

~~~
hawkice
By "independently" I just mean that you will learn faster and earn more per
hour if you work a normal job and learn on the side than spending the same
time learning on the job. All jobs require some learning and adaptation, so
the marginal increasing in learning for a job that e.g. allows you to pull a
technical book off the bookshelf and read if you don't have a task assigned is
pretty low. Sounds good on paper, but they'll pay you a lot less for pretty
little benefit.

------
notahacker
If you're an autodidact there's a good chance you'll learn more spending four
months reading and coding yourself than crapping out code for a company that -
by the nature of the offer they're making - evidently doesn't have a real
training program.

$55k is not a particularly generous salary for a junior developer in the
United States, never mind someone with project management skills... which
might not be exactly the same as project management in oil, but certainly
require similar judgement and soft skills. By your own admission those skills
were worth $100k+ in previous roles, even if you didn't particularly like
them. You might, of course, be less productive when changing roles,
particularly if you want to focus on writing code, and you might be willing to
sacrifice the possibility of a high salary for a better working environment
and the dream of creating something. You might find it hard to find a role
where your past experience is _highly_ valued, and you might want to spend the
bulk of your time looking at a text editor, rather than sitting with middle
management discussing which feature requests should be prioritised and
explaining they can't get everything they've asked for in a week.

But the idea that you should have to work unpaid for four months in order to
prove you're worth half as much as you used to be, in a role which sounds like
it was devised for a teenager in their first job, sounds like madness.

As you've presented it, the offer makes sense on no levels.

------
greenyoda
If the business is not a non-profit and your work benefits the business (i.e.,
it's not purely for your own educational benefit), it's probably a violation
of federal and state minimum wage laws to pay you less than minimum wage. Even
interns are required to be paid at least minimum wage if they're doing work
that benefits their employer.

~~~
dangrossman
Just to expand, it's still illegal even if they follow through on the $55K
contract after 4 months, even if that averages out to more than minimum wage
over the 16 months. If you treat someone like an employee, you have to put
them on payroll, with a regular pay schedule, paying at least minimum wage,
and start withholding taxes, immediately.

~~~
gamechangr
I think that's how they intend to structure it. They want a 16 month
commitment with prorated contract of $55k.

I am yet to see the contract to see how the 120 day (4 month) is defined.

They did mention that they would have check to see if this was legal and
implied that if it wasn't they would pay for me to do a "java bootcamp" and
then they would go from there.

------
n-gauge
Please, as others have stated, don't work for free (If it was a day or
something my answer may be different) these guys's that play this card just
isn't worth you investment.. the're using you. (I've been in similar
situations in my youth..)

------
bcg1
Never work for free, unless it is for yourself.

If you want a trial by fire education, go on elance or odesk or whatever
people do to freelance now and pick up some small projects that you feel
comfortable that you can complete. Do that for 4 months and you'll be far
better off.

If they expect you to work for free they're not a real shop where you'll learn
anything meaningful anyhow.

If anything... tell them you will take a 16 month contract for $55k but they
have to pay you from day 1. Mathematically it is the same but I guarantee they
will tell you to pound sand, and then you'll know who you're dealing with

------
atmosx
I won't tell if you should or should not accept this job.

However:

* Rails is not fading. Just take a look at the job offerings, almost 1 in 4 is about Rails... Rails IMHO has no direct competitor as of TODAY. At some point in time might be superseded, but I see a solid dev-cycle, DHH and the rails community are fairly active + ruby is really awesome for numerous other tasks.

* Java is a very requested language. You should be able to get other jobs if you know Java.

* You should really dig into JavaScript as that market for JS is huge and it's only going to grow.

~~~
gamechangr
Thanks,

I've been thinking about focusing on JavaScript as all roads seem to lead to
Javascript at the moment.

I do think that MEAN stacks (or staying within Javascript) might end up being
a competition to the Ruby on Rails world, but that is speculation at the
moment. Hard to really tell which way the wind will blow.

------
mattmurdog
Honestly, i'd go beg for your old job back especially if you were making six
figures. Also Ruby is different than Java, very different. A Ruby bootcamp
will not and has not prepared you to become a full-time developer. Lastly, no
company worth a damn would make someone work for free for 4 months and then
pay them 55k. We pay our interns that much if not more and they don't even
know what MVC or OOP is.

~~~
gamechangr
I appreciate the concern on the job front. I've been waiting to quit for maybe
three years, but yeah my base was low six figures (bonuses were a moving
target, but good)

I didn't really think of the Ruby on Rails bootcamp as preparing me, just as
giving me enough exposure to know if I wanted to explore programming as a
profession. I had a blast, but did feel a little bad for some of the other
really bright people who were counting on a job upon completing it.

The money is maybe the least important part of my concern, but I guess I
should look at that objectively. If interns make more, I should either
repackage myself as an intern or look for a better fit.

I enjoy the people that interviewed me. I think I could take to Java, at least
I picture it would give me a strong foundation for future development, which
is one of my objectives.

I just can't seem to get over the idea that they don't have enough invested in
my learning curve, which is why I asked HN.

Thanks for the input. upvoted.

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mswen
I live in the Minneapolis area and I was looking around on behalf of someone
else the other day and came across the following: For people making a
transition into coding from other fields - pay $15 hr for a three month
training period and then depending on how well you did the follow on work
ranged from $25 to $35 an hour. You should not work for free for 4 months.

~~~
gamechangr
I didn't know Minneapolis area was that hungry for new talent. That is a lot
closer to what I am looking for, where there is a sense of investment by the
training/hiring company. I'll take a look for sure.

------
MalcolmDiggs
Yes, work for free for 4 months... but not _that_ way.

In 4 months you could contribute to a number of open-source projects, launch
some pet projects, and build up your portfolio/github with great examples of
your talent.

If you're gonna work for free for 4 months, that's they way I would do it...
after that experience you'll be able to get better position at a better
salary.

------
logn
Ask for $15/hr and then $55K/yr. I earned about that doing a co-op in the
Midwest, age 20, with no experience. Computer programmers are almost never
offered unpaid internships.

But overall these people seem sketchy. Go to your CS department and ask to be
put in touch with some local employers who have offered internships at your
university in the past.

------
paulhauggis
I wouldn't work for free..especially for 4 months. However, if you are going
to do this, get in in writing in terms of a contract.

Even with a contract, they could let you go right before they are actually
going to pay you.

------
lsiebert
I learned this lesson the hard way. Don't do this.

