Ask HN: Unpaid internship followed by unpaid work with equity. I'm a student

JoshTriplett · on May 23, 2015

You're being massively exploited. You'd be better off spending your time working on some visible Open Source project that you can later hold up as an example of your work, which will have a far higher expected value than equity in a startup that's not even bothering to pay their developers.

Make a significant contribution to an existing project, which carries a lot more weight than starting a new one unless you create something earth-shattering. Talk with some of your professors, who will likely have some experience and connections there, and who might be willing to suggest a project; also seek out prominent projects with TODO lists.

And in your remaining year, do whatever it takes to get your focus back and improve your grades. Remember, there is a grade above A+; it's "hey, I have this project you might find interesting". Half of the value of your education will occur outside of your classes. Depending on just what you mean by "atrocious", you might also want to retake some critical courses, both for the grade and in case you missed something foundational.

Also, don't sweat the "rockstar" thing, and don't undervalue yourself; diligence is a critical skill that people often undervalue, and well-applied diligence plus experience makes for an exceptional engineer. I'll take diligence over half of the "rockstars" out there any day.

When you go to build your résumé, highlight the project or projects you worked on and the impact it had.

_t1mq · on May 23, 2015

Well, now that I think about it I also undervalued myself and almost didn't apply to university thinking that I would not get accepted.

I think that you are right in that I should work on a visible Open Source project, even if only contributing in small bugs and documentation. Eventually, and with at least some projects under my belt I hope I can land a small position somewhere.

Yet, I don't feel exploited at all because the money issue was discussed with me in an upfront manner and I have not done any amount of work yet. And besides, it is a position that offers experience that I can put later on my CV and potentially eventually it will lead to a paying job.

So in a sense, isn't it riskier to not accept this offer?

I dunno, I still have some doubts...

JoshTriplett · on May 23, 2015

> Well, now that I think about it I also undervalued myself and almost didn't apply to university thinking that I would not get accepted.

Between that sentence and the rest of your comment, I think you're still seriously undervaluing yourself.

> I think that you are right in that I should work on a visible Open Source project, even if only contributing in small bugs and documentation. Eventually, and with at least some projects under my belt I hope I can land a small position somewhere.

Small bugs and documentation are a good start. You should also consider working on a more substantial feature, the kind of thing that will take you weeks or more to complete. Something of the size that you can point to that project and that feature and say "I did that".

Pick a project you regularly use, that has a friendly and welcoming community around it. Learn how to build it from source, try a couple of very small patches at first (much easier for a project that has a very new-developer-friendly community), and then seek out a substantial project to work on. Most projects have a wishlist of items that they'd work on if they had more time.

> Yet, I don't feel exploited at all because the money issue was discussed with me in an upfront manner and I have not done any amount of work yet. And besides, it is a position that offers experience that I can put later on my CV and potentially eventually it will lead to a paying job.

They're not being underhanded in the sense of bait-and-switch; they've certainly told you up front. However, what they're not telling you is how the rest of the market would value your skills. Internships in CS, as a general rule, are paid, and reasonably well at that; certainly far above minimum wage. Go look up intern salaries at major companies. Ask around and find out what other students have done. (And I don't just mean at your own university, or even in your own country.)

(Depending on the nature of the arrangement, I'd also be surprised that they're not in some way violating labor laws by having you work for free, but that's not an avenue you want to pursue.)

> So in a sense, isn't it riskier to not accept this offer?

> I dunno, I still have some doubts...

You have a year left in school, and you have your whole life ahead of you. Don't set the precedent of being willing to work for free. And after you do graduate, do some reading about negotiation before you accept your first job offer. If you go into either an internship or your first job with the stance you're taking now, you're going to spend your whole career being underpaid.

rorykoehler · on May 23, 2015

Took the words right out of my mouth.

kjksf · on May 23, 2015

Don't do it. Working for free is unacceptable (especially in today's market for developers). Working for equity is usually a bad idea (the main thing to understand that equity only converts to cash on sale or acquisition, which are extremely rare events and even if that does happen, don't count on it happening for several years).

What to do instead? Either start your own open source project (if you have ideas for something useful) or contribute to one of many existing projects (pick something with decent name recognition).

If you're into low-level coding, contribute to Rust. If you're into front-end, JavaScript, contribute to atom.io (those are just random examples, the point is that for anything that you might be interested in, there is an open source project in that area that is desperate for more developers).

A meaningful contribution to a well-known open-source project will be much more interesting to your future potential employer than random unpaid work for a random company.

At the same time pick the project carefully. There are many projects that are not good at onboarding new developers so submit small fixes (Pull Requests in GitHub speak) to a few that interest you and pick those that are quick providing feedback (even if it's to reject a PR as long as they do it in a nice way and explain why) and drop those that are unresponsive.

_t1mq · on May 23, 2015

I see. Well, atom.io interests me a lot, since I know a little bit of JavaScript and contributed to a relatively medium-sized game framework (melonJS). I will try just starting with small bugs and work my way up the ladder.

I was asked to meet the CEO tomorrow to sign an IP assignment agreement, and I have not signed anything yet, so I assume I am ok legally speaking.

By the way, the CEOs of these small start-ups were 100% honest with the pay considerations and I feel kind of bad now that I have to go and say that I will not be joining their start-up.

aquark · on May 23, 2015

One other thing to think about would be intangibles the startups can offer vs open source:

* how good are you at self-motivating * what chance is there of being mentored at the start up? * will the CEO provide a good reference later one: a human reference likely beats pointing out the open source contributions in many jobs in the future

If you are going to work for free anyway on open source then make sure you have the dedication to actually do it.

Being more directly accountable to someone may be a benefit.

Good luck ... it's a tough call!

aurizon · on May 23, 2015

Companies look for people that love code work for it's own sake, they do it for many hours for fun. Have you ever done any of that type of obsessive work-of-love type of thing? Companies are built on people who build up things on small boards like Arduino and create programming problems and solve them - all as part of getting better at the skill of it. It is a form of self learning or self studying. After the three weeks, if they see none of that you = history

notahacker · on May 23, 2015

Frankly, the mere 1% equity and no cash they're offering if you stay is more insulting than the initial internship.

Working for free can be a valuable lesson, but working for free for a team whose offer suggests they have no regard whatsoever for your ability (or are completely clueless) is unlikely to teach you things you want to learn.

rajacombinator · on May 25, 2015

I'm going to be the voice of dissent here and say if you like the team and the project do it. It sounds like you need to strengthen your resume and this could be an good opportunity.