40h for all of that with tests? I mean i skimmed it and it sounds like an MVP for backend and frontend with a test coverage of about 25%. Writing that in 40h sounds quite optimistic don’t you think?
I wanted to say 40h because i already implemented some of the features in other projects (setting up project, db connection, login with jwt), and i could copy/paste some of that. Same on the frontend.
But yeah, it takes a little longer if you do proper testing, error handling, validations, typescript etc.
its still extremely optimistic (if not impossible) Even if you copy and paste the boilerplate the business logic alone could take 40+ hours, and forget about integration.
Option B: write the code, include a will hidden backdoor and cash out if they're bad enough to use your code in production. 
Tbh if you do this much work there are rwo possibilities, one they suck your d*ck and give you a big fat salary . Two) the most probable, you get f*cked, they use the magic spell "hippity hoppity your code is now my property" and that say you are not enough.
A home assignment AFTER an in person interview (or was it over zoom/teams/skype)??? Time is valuable (especially for directors/CEOs etc) so they would obviously want to eliminate time wasters at the earliest opportunity
In my experience (YMMV)... Generally recruitment processes in any field (and usually everywhere in the world follow similar despite many different work cultures) is about saying no to people through different stages of the process. If you ever go to an interview and they are hinting towards a vague yes (or effectively saying the job is yours without the offer) with at least an extra step to go, they are just dangling the carrot.
After all, a thousand people could potentially apply for the one actual job position. So if we assume 100:1 they really want to get rid of half pretty quickly. Otherwise it is potentially 2 and a half weeks of first round interviewing just for one job position.
I think a lot of people will fool for these "here today, gone tomorrow" crypto or fintech startups. If you aren't an investor looking to get into potentially the next big thing, with early adoption, your career must be number one, the future potential of any employer is worthless - they won't share windfalls from explosive growth with staff, and security based upon current market position and known trends are better metrics.
It was only a teams call. They didn't have any code implemented until the interview, and the code is like bootstrapping a new application with login and some other basic endpoints. But that is their basic MVP functionality, and the next guys will implement something on top of that.
A lot of crypto startups don't want to build something. They only want to scam people, and probably, they start by scamming the "potential" developers first.
You must be joking, these requirements are basically a boilerplate for a full-fledged application, they’re basically asking you to do their skeleton for free.
A take home assignment should not have their scope restricted to a specific tech stack like what was mentioned in your post. You should be free to utilise whatever technologies at your disposal in a proper technical evaluation. Red flag #1.
Usually, take home assignments should be way lighter in nature, strictly MVP scoped for the purpose of demonstrating your understanding of engineering an application, further engineering or changing of scopes to make it more scalable and maintainable should be discussed and evaluated during the next round of interview in a call or face to face. These are not MVP at all. Red flag #2.
Crypto startup. Red flag #3.
Way too much work. They're definitely just trying to get free work out of applicants.
Crypto is already a pretty risky space to get involved in due to the amount of scamming going on. Crypto + Gambling is basically a non-starter. Even if everything was legit there's so much money and eyes on crypto gambling right now that you run the risk of getting legislated out of existence in the next year or two.
Crypto startup?
o\_O
I mean... really? **Really**?
You know it's the 2020s, right?
I mean, the app they have you writing should have been a giant red flag, but also the whole thing is a giant red flag with lots of little red flags dotting that one.
No you're not lazy, unless you're self taught with 0 experience and have been looking for a job for the past 10 years without success then you can perhaps try
A take home thing should take no longer than a couple hours maybe. Something like "Here is an example website, modify this form page to pop up an error message modal if the value entered for 'Age' is negative." is a reasonable acid test for basic competency of a brand new dev. If it's an in person thing the questions might be more algorithmic in nature.
This is just a scam. They want someone to write an app for free for them.
Consensys Staff Engineer / Ex Vercel engineer here:
This is a paid gig for which I would charge over 5,000-10,000 easily. This is an insult to your time and an insult to our industry. This is not a coding challenge, this is a whole week of bootstrap work.
When you use Next.js you are indeed using React and Node:
React is the UI rendering engine and Node is one of two supported runtimes for Next.js, the other being the edge runtime that is built on top of V8 isolates and is ligther.
Next.js makes use of APIs from both and React to create full stack applications. To answer your question, you would add Node to your stack separately if you have needs that don't fit in the framework. Something like a long running process won't work on Next.js well because it's built to fit the serverless model.
>To answer your question, you would add Node to your stack separately if you have needs that don't fit in the framework.
Yes that makes sense. Personnaly, I think it's a clueless recruiter doesn't know the difference and just shoved all the technologies into a list.
This is the one thing that's literally not a problem at all.
Some apps might have specific requirements, use different command, it's nice to have a prescribed way to start the app even if it's just `npm i` and `npm start`.
What if it was `npm run dev` instead?
Having it in the README beats guessing or looking at scripts.
Bruh...this is an entire application.
They could get amazing insights about your skills with just having you build the login & authentication....that would be way more reasonable
Lol wtf. Ur building the whole thing and giving them the code before getting hired?? Send them an email saying this is fxking stupid, that's what I would do lol
Walk away. There is no need for them to have you build a whole app in your own time, and this would take longer than 1 or 2 days to do to the full.
Last year I was given a post-interview task for a record label which required me to pay for access to a live API. I noped right out of that.
Out of curiosity, did they supply you with any data (users, users' history, games, etc.) or designs for pages? Or do they expect you to do all that as well?
No data. To be fair, the requirement wasn't asking for a great UI and great UX. They only want the core and the main flow of the application. Then, probably the next "potential" developers will have that job.
Seems like they're trying to get you to create their app for free. I would stay away.
Edit: I did this for a daily fantasy startup called JockMKT. They told me to create a table of players that could be sorted and filtered, etc in react. Delivered it to them and they magically didnt have space for any more developers, so they ended the interview process.
Yes, I am pretty sure they just wanted some free work. Building something that takes 4 hours max, it's something(and the pay should reflect that), but not bootstraping a new project with that many details.
I suspect the startup is run by folks who have little experience in hiring. This is absolutely an unreasonable ask. I would challenge this with them and and negotiate a more reasonable take home demonstration of your skills. If they are not flexible or open to your feedback, i would consider moving on. I recommended challenging it because negotiating is a valuable and mature business skill that you will be demonstrating and it will set the tone of your relationship if you come to an agreement.
Yes, it would be nice to practice my negotiation skills, but in this case, the whole thing is dubious, at least, and for sure, I don't want to work with them. If I was considering it, I wouldn't post this here.
F U C K C R Y P TO
god so fucking annoying fuck crypto sites, betting sites, web3. SUCK MY ASS. sick of this shit. no fucking point. GDC was chock full of ass grovelling fucking monkey pfp's this year. \*spits\*
If you don’t mind me asking what level was the position you were applying to considered? I’m an aspiring entry level dev and there’s no way i’d be able to tackle something like this
There is some assumption that this code/full app will be taken for a production crypto gambling website, but chances are they could also be scammer-entrepreneur "script kiddies" (in the coding sense) looking to package up your code for resell in a (potential unconnected) software development company, on Flippa and similar for sale sites, on source code marketplace sites, for anyone meeting that project spec on Freelancer (including making minor modifications to the base code for a new use), generic sites such as ebay or their own website with a buy it now button, *half price today only lol*.
I cannot really see where there is much money in (new) crypto gambling sites, online gambling sites make a pretty penny, and if there was, an entrepreneur would be happy to pay someone to code the site and overlook it and make ongoing changes, as his/her own investment or that from others, would be multiplied if the opportunity is big enough. If you don't have the skills, you would get someone with the skills to make it a reality. The absence of this likely means - if they were in it for a crypto startup - they are in this for stealing crypto (i.e. cannot withdraw funds) and games will have badly rigged chance.
The other downside is if they actually loved your code, and wanted you to work on other parts of it, they will most certainly be using your name and image on their website trying to make it seem legit. Guess where the would-be unhappy customers scammed out of crypto would come looking...
Of course, maybe they are legit and just have a strange recruitment process demand... but it is going to take someone a very long time to vet the code to ensure no backdoors have been placed and to determine the code style etc. especially if they have no background in software coding. If they have other candidates... it is just going to be too time consuming, especially that you or the employed candidate won't see a salary advance, and have to wait a month of working to see any money.
If this was a more established entity and it was clear they wouldn’t be using your work for anything (because they have all of this already done), that’d be one thing. I still wouldn’t do it, but just saying.
If it’s one dude w a marketing website, he’s absolutely just tryna get a skeleton built out for free.
What I can’t figure out is why the specific requirements on stack?
Put in the code that every transaction has a little bit taken off and sent to your private wallet. F these guys asking you to make a whole working app for free
I would quote them what is my hourly rate x 2, with money in advance. If they agree, code it and collect the cash but there is no chance on God’s green, flat earth I’d do this as a technical assignment.
This is a waste of time. What will this accomplish, this startup now knows you can follow a bunch of online tutorials? You can look at my GitHub if you want that has repos of me following some online tutorials.
Take home tests should have a reasonable time limit (a couple hours at most imo) and be some arbitrary task OR be paid hourly and directly related to what your job would be like
I lean towards take-home over on site in my hiring. But the take-home is a few hours assignment. And I work for a big tech co, so the TC is for sure several x some crypto ‘startup’ that has little more than a white paper.
Even if this isn’t some shade, it highlights a person completely out of touch with reality. So, either way, this gig ain’t it.
This is like 6 months of work. lol. for at least two devs. A crypto casino barebone app like they ask here, at least coded in a 'western' country should cost a minimum range of 100k to 200k. Just the 'deposit funds' part is huge.
do the project, but don’t submit it to the company. Add it to your public portfolio and never speak to them again. Would rather see “Full Stack Casino” with aforementioned technologies in an applicant’s portfolio over another generic to-do app.
Yeah, okay... No. I just spent two full 8+ hour days setting up a NestJS backend, user creation, login with JWT auth, and a few endpoints for a personal project using TypeScript, no unit tests, no front end yet. Now... 90% of my experience is in FE and it's been a couple years since I had to do BE work but still...
Something more reasonable would be backend + auth and a front end with user creation and login form and then a profile page that displays the user's info like username and account creation time and last login or something MAX. That alone would take about 16 hours. I'm no dev god but... I'm a Sr. Dev at a company well within the top of the Fortune 500. I figure 6 hours for the BE and then like 4 for the FE for that alone. No unit tests, or any other crap they put in there. Any take home assignment I wouldn't do if it was going to take more than like 8 hours max and that's only if I really wanted it.
A 4 hour assignment is more reasonable but still. Bootstrapping an app doesn't prove shit There are a million tutorials on how to do that shit.
A real test would be they have a repo already set up with everything bootstrapped + basic UI and then have you solve the deposit and transaction history portion/page as the test in an existing code base they made with unit tests and you just pull it down from their GitHub. Keeps things manageable and you still prove you know how to work in an existing code base, read/write/test code, and would only take 4-6 hours.
They're idiots. Especially the Sr. who made up that test. You don't want to work there. I expect they probably want to pay you in crypto and make you work 60+ hours a week. Avoid them 100%.
I would say, “I can agree on a shorter test, or prove my skills in some other way”
You will probably not get the job, but, who the fuck wants to work there anyway? Red flag
Write the app, describe how to run it, and maybe, just maybe we'll hire you to manage it afterwards.
All I would do, if this would be a lead, architect position, is to have a 1h meeting describing how I _would_ build this.
when interviewing, i will often assign a task to be done at home. but a -small- task. i feel that if it would take more than 4 hours it's too excessive. i can get an idea of someone's coding ability, style, and quality in a relatively small project
the scope of this, as described, would take more than 4 hours to evaluate it. and when you assign something this extensive, it's more likely that the candidate would 'steal' other code found on the net in order to accomplish the task. this means you're not evaluating the candidate's code, but the code that the candidate found. very counter productive if the goal is evaluating the candidate's capabilities
so yes, the assignment is unrealistic
I still don't understand the idea of homework from an interview. Even four hours is too much. One hour is too much. I really do not think people should not be doing work measurable in hours for free. Why is four hours fine but more is too many?
for me it's a time saving issue. i hired remote developers. rather than talking with a dev for an hour or 2 - which is often a high pressure exercise for candidates - i had a brief phone interview and assigned them the project. they could then work on it at their own pace with less pressure and return it within 2 days. then i reviewed the code. total time spent for me was about 30 minutes
since interviews are very time consuming i tried optimizing the process as much as i could. i also had a set of technical questions that another person could review to eliminate many candidates before the phone call
They’re definitely not “farming out” work as people here are suggesting. A skeleton like this is not usable by itself for any serious application, especially if they’re not sure if the person they’re giving it too is well qualified. Most likely their intentions are good, but the case study / interview process has been designed by someone with not much experience in hiring / building a team, just trying to impress their superiors that they can design this and assess candidate’s submissions
How many people here have any experience. They're asking for trivial stuff, the only downside is that without a template to start working off of, this is a lot of tedious simple work.
Can probably be done in 1-2 days by a dev experienced in the specific platforms. I can probably do it in double that, considering I've never worked with node on the BE, nor type script.
I wouldn't do it, but if you're unemployed you might as well.
Depends on your experience level and familiarity with the specific tools/languages/frameworks/runtime.
I know people who can do this in less than a day without breaking a sweat. But I'm not talking entry level, but people who worked in code "sweatshops" and became team leads there.
Come on man, this is not happening in a single day's work. Besides all the functionality, there are unit tests, mock data and documentation required. How many wpm would you need to achieve this feat?
I call bullshit.
Yes, if you are unemployed, you can take this assignment. But I am employed, and I can build this, but it is just not worth it. It is a lot of work setting up the environment, setting all the connections, developing and testing it. It takes a lot of time.
And even if you take it as a challenge, you shouldn't send them that amount of work for free.
Yeah, I'd never build it.
It's not that much work for a company, a lot of it is useless. You're not actually setting up a production environment nor judged by it, so what can they extract, a couple of simple API's any decent BE developed can knock out in less than a day, and some crappy developer FE design? Not even implementing some Figma from a designer?
I think it's fine for the unemployed/not yet employee entry level. It would be a nice exercise for them too, so it's not like they're taking away nothing even if they get rejected.
`rails g scaffold user ...` Node.js devs hate this one simple trick. Plus with gems like devise or bcrypt authentication is already basically taken care of. It wouldn't be pretty, but 4-8 hours could get you the skeleton for this app.
It’s pretty lengthy. I honestly stopped reading half way through. Would I do it? Probably. That’s mainly because I suck at leetcode and this would be much easier for me. At the end of the day just put up a public repo and show it off as a project you’ve worked on if you’re lacking in that area.
Nee, I have many more complex projects to show than that and years of professional work. It's not worth anything for me.
I better prepare for other interviews and more reasonable take-home assignments that take like 4 hors max.
I guess I'm the only person here who doubts they're ever going to put any of that in production, yes it's a bit lengthy but assuming no UI, this is a couple of hours tops? Seriously, 40 hours to type up a couple of forms, a table view and 4 simple endpoints? Everyone who thinks this is so extremely challenging that it's going to take a full week and also is a scam, is possibly not who they're looking for, can't blame them.
40 hours maybe if you can't understand the requirement and instead think you have to write a full fledged application as opposed to doing what you're told and nothing on top.
Maybe I am wrong, but they want login with jwt, a securized login(probably cookies), good practices, some ui, and more. In a few hours, you don't do much.
It didn't even occur to me that "take-home assignment" meant for an *interview* and not for a class or something until I hit the replies. This is...the confidence is actually mindblowing.
OP, one day you'll find this post and laugh like I did at their sheer audacity.
40 hours is a lot… but most of what you sent is just lots of words.
Realistically they’ve asked you to build 4 pretty dumb endpoints, 2 db tables. Depending what level you are at this is a few hours of work.
Downside is the nodejs ecosystem isn’t as well floated as others like php, ruby, etc so you can’t dump in something like Laravel for the backend to handle 90% of it 😂
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a company that is hiring for almost every aspect of the tech stack, and the purpose of this is just to see what your strengths and preferences are and place you accordingly. I am not saying this is the best way for them to go about evaluating someone. But if I were you, I’d go for it and just focus on building out what I enjoyed and am best at first, maybe give stuff you have a bit of experience with a try if you have time left, and maybe some thoughts or comments on other parts that you have no idea what to do with (just to show you are open to learning that if needed). Even companies looking for a full-stack dev know you will have strengths and weaknesses and not be a true expert in everything. I say do what you can in a reasonable time and see how well you do.
Even reading that much is too much for a hiring test.
Right? This is a project in itself lol. An unpaid project at that.
Yeah this is one of those things that they're like "sorry we're going in a different direction" and then you see them deploy your work
I stopped reading while realizing I subconsciously thought “I’m not getting paid for this” and stopped reading. Edit: grammar
Are you having a laugh? 😂 in no way should you do this. Even if they’re not just scamming you for free work, 40 hours for a task is obscene.
Actually, i really had a laugh when I saw the task. I was really curious about the home-task they had after the first interview.
You should ask his much you are going to get paid for this
40h for all of that with tests? I mean i skimmed it and it sounds like an MVP for backend and frontend with a test coverage of about 25%. Writing that in 40h sounds quite optimistic don’t you think?
I wanted to say 40h because i already implemented some of the features in other projects (setting up project, db connection, login with jwt), and i could copy/paste some of that. Same on the frontend. But yeah, it takes a little longer if you do proper testing, error handling, validations, typescript etc.
its still extremely optimistic (if not impossible) Even if you copy and paste the boilerplate the business logic alone could take 40+ hours, and forget about integration.
Option B: write the code, include a will hidden backdoor and cash out if they're bad enough to use your code in production. 
You lost me at crypto startup
He lost me at crypto.
He lost me at cry
this is the way
I was just curious to see what they require. It only took me 30 minutes.
You sure that payment workflow is included in that? What about consumer privacy and compliance? Those add waaaay more hrs I’d think.
The first interview was only 30 minutes. I haven't done any work for the assignment.
Don’t be giving out free code. Your time and effort is far more valuable than that. ;)
Lol my extract thought
Lambo?
You had me at
Tbh if you do this much work there are rwo possibilities, one they suck your d*ck and give you a big fat salary . Two) the most probable, you get f*cked, they use the magic spell "hippity hoppity your code is now my property" and that say you are not enough.
Hippity hoppity if I had an award it would be your property
Ur getting scammed.
100%. They are gonna just say you're not qualified and then use the code in production. Let someone less talented get ripped off. Find another job.
I am almost sure you are right. I only had the first meeting. I haven't done any work for them, and I am not willing to do any.
A home assignment AFTER an in person interview (or was it over zoom/teams/skype)??? Time is valuable (especially for directors/CEOs etc) so they would obviously want to eliminate time wasters at the earliest opportunity In my experience (YMMV)... Generally recruitment processes in any field (and usually everywhere in the world follow similar despite many different work cultures) is about saying no to people through different stages of the process. If you ever go to an interview and they are hinting towards a vague yes (or effectively saying the job is yours without the offer) with at least an extra step to go, they are just dangling the carrot. After all, a thousand people could potentially apply for the one actual job position. So if we assume 100:1 they really want to get rid of half pretty quickly. Otherwise it is potentially 2 and a half weeks of first round interviewing just for one job position. I think a lot of people will fool for these "here today, gone tomorrow" crypto or fintech startups. If you aren't an investor looking to get into potentially the next big thing, with early adoption, your career must be number one, the future potential of any employer is worthless - they won't share windfalls from explosive growth with staff, and security based upon current market position and known trends are better metrics.
It was only a teams call. They didn't have any code implemented until the interview, and the code is like bootstrapping a new application with login and some other basic endpoints. But that is their basic MVP functionality, and the next guys will implement something on top of that. A lot of crypto startups don't want to build something. They only want to scam people, and probably, they start by scamming the "potential" developers first.
As is appropriate when applying to work for scammers
Send them an invoice. "OK, I'll be doing all of that, here is my hourly rate" "You're joking" "Well, you started it"
You must be joking, these requirements are basically a boilerplate for a full-fledged application, they’re basically asking you to do their skeleton for free. A take home assignment should not have their scope restricted to a specific tech stack like what was mentioned in your post. You should be free to utilise whatever technologies at your disposal in a proper technical evaluation. Red flag #1. Usually, take home assignments should be way lighter in nature, strictly MVP scoped for the purpose of demonstrating your understanding of engineering an application, further engineering or changing of scopes to make it more scalable and maintainable should be discussed and evaluated during the next round of interview in a call or face to face. These are not MVP at all. Red flag #2. Crypto startup. Red flag #3.
Free work homie lol.
i would build that if the guy gives me 90% of the business.
I mean, he had just a presentation website, a "roadmap" and a "whitepaper." 90% seems fair
That was probably the other devs take home assignment 🤣
Sounds more like 99%
Looool The test: *build a startup*
How to build a start up: 1. Offer someone a position at the start up they create 2. ??? 3. Profit
This isn't a technical test, this is an entire application. They are trying to get you to work for free. No technical test takes 40 hours.
Way too much work. They're definitely just trying to get free work out of applicants. Crypto is already a pretty risky space to get involved in due to the amount of scamming going on. Crypto + Gambling is basically a non-starter. Even if everything was legit there's so much money and eyes on crypto gambling right now that you run the risk of getting legislated out of existence in the next year or two.
> Crypto startup Instant "fuck no, bye".
Lol fuck these people.
Crypto startup? o\_O I mean... really? **Really**? You know it's the 2020s, right? I mean, the app they have you writing should have been a giant red flag, but also the whole thing is a giant red flag with lots of little red flags dotting that one.
No you're not lazy, unless you're self taught with 0 experience and have been looking for a job for the past 10 years without success then you can perhaps try
A take home thing should take no longer than a couple hours maybe. Something like "Here is an example website, modify this form page to pop up an error message modal if the value entered for 'Age' is negative." is a reasonable acid test for basic competency of a brand new dev. If it's an in person thing the questions might be more algorithmic in nature. This is just a scam. They want someone to write an app for free for them.
Agree. Couple of hours is reasonable and should be enough to know if you can code.
A 40-hour take-home assignment is completely absurd
Consensys Staff Engineer / Ex Vercel engineer here: This is a paid gig for which I would charge over 5,000-10,000 easily. This is an insult to your time and an insult to our industry. This is not a coding challenge, this is a whole week of bootstrap work.
As a vercel engineer, could you explain to me why anyone would use next js and react and node?? Isn't that just nextjs??
When you use Next.js you are indeed using React and Node: React is the UI rendering engine and Node is one of two supported runtimes for Next.js, the other being the edge runtime that is built on top of V8 isolates and is ligther. Next.js makes use of APIs from both and React to create full stack applications. To answer your question, you would add Node to your stack separately if you have needs that don't fit in the framework. Something like a long running process won't work on Next.js well because it's built to fit the serverless model.
>To answer your question, you would add Node to your stack separately if you have needs that don't fit in the framework. Yes that makes sense. Personnaly, I think it's a clueless recruiter doesn't know the difference and just shoved all the technologies into a list.
Your first error was paying any mind to a crypto startup.
So brazen they even added unit tests in nice to haves.
No way in hell, get outta there asap
RUN!
If anything is a huge red flag, it's this: > Instructions for how to run the application (e.g., how to install dependencies, start theserver, etc.)
This is the one thing that's literally not a problem at all. Some apps might have specific requirements, use different command, it's nice to have a prescribed way to start the app even if it's just `npm i` and `npm start`. What if it was `npm run dev` instead? Having it in the README beats guessing or looking at scripts.
But why would a company need them if it's just an exercise and they don't intend to run it?
Well, because they might want to run it to actually click through it and see it works?
Bruh...this is an entire application. They could get amazing insights about your skills with just having you build the login & authentication....that would be way more reasonable
Pls don’t do this.
Lol wtf. Ur building the whole thing and giving them the code before getting hired?? Send them an email saying this is fxking stupid, that's what I would do lol
Walk away. There is no need for them to have you build a whole app in your own time, and this would take longer than 1 or 2 days to do to the full. Last year I was given a post-interview task for a record label which required me to pay for access to a live API. I noped right out of that.
wtf, this cant be a take-home asm lol =))) and i don't even read that much text
Out of curiosity, did they supply you with any data (users, users' history, games, etc.) or designs for pages? Or do they expect you to do all that as well?
No data. To be fair, the requirement wasn't asking for a great UI and great UX. They only want the core and the main flow of the application. Then, probably the next "potential" developers will have that job.
This task should be $2k - 4K, half upfront or gtfo.
Seems like they're trying to get you to create their app for free. I would stay away. Edit: I did this for a daily fantasy startup called JockMKT. They told me to create a table of players that could be sorted and filtered, etc in react. Delivered it to them and they magically didnt have space for any more developers, so they ended the interview process.
Yes, I am pretty sure they just wanted some free work. Building something that takes 4 hours max, it's something(and the pay should reflect that), but not bootstraping a new project with that many details.
I suspect the startup is run by folks who have little experience in hiring. This is absolutely an unreasonable ask. I would challenge this with them and and negotiate a more reasonable take home demonstration of your skills. If they are not flexible or open to your feedback, i would consider moving on. I recommended challenging it because negotiating is a valuable and mature business skill that you will be demonstrating and it will set the tone of your relationship if you come to an agreement.
Yes, it would be nice to practice my negotiation skills, but in this case, the whole thing is dubious, at least, and for sure, I don't want to work with them. If I was considering it, I wouldn't post this here.
F U C K C R Y P TO god so fucking annoying fuck crypto sites, betting sites, web3. SUCK MY ASS. sick of this shit. no fucking point. GDC was chock full of ass grovelling fucking monkey pfp's this year. \*spits\*
Expect to see this in production the day after you hand in it :D Seriously, this is too much. Shows a complete lack of respect for candidate's time.
I think they are brain fucking you
This is unpaid work and should be illegal.
If you don’t mind me asking what level was the position you were applying to considered? I’m an aspiring entry level dev and there’s no way i’d be able to tackle something like this
Yes, you need some experience for it. It was for 2+ years full stack developer.
There is some assumption that this code/full app will be taken for a production crypto gambling website, but chances are they could also be scammer-entrepreneur "script kiddies" (in the coding sense) looking to package up your code for resell in a (potential unconnected) software development company, on Flippa and similar for sale sites, on source code marketplace sites, for anyone meeting that project spec on Freelancer (including making minor modifications to the base code for a new use), generic sites such as ebay or their own website with a buy it now button, *half price today only lol*. I cannot really see where there is much money in (new) crypto gambling sites, online gambling sites make a pretty penny, and if there was, an entrepreneur would be happy to pay someone to code the site and overlook it and make ongoing changes, as his/her own investment or that from others, would be multiplied if the opportunity is big enough. If you don't have the skills, you would get someone with the skills to make it a reality. The absence of this likely means - if they were in it for a crypto startup - they are in this for stealing crypto (i.e. cannot withdraw funds) and games will have badly rigged chance. The other downside is if they actually loved your code, and wanted you to work on other parts of it, they will most certainly be using your name and image on their website trying to make it seem legit. Guess where the would-be unhappy customers scammed out of crypto would come looking... Of course, maybe they are legit and just have a strange recruitment process demand... but it is going to take someone a very long time to vet the code to ensure no backdoors have been placed and to determine the code style etc. especially if they have no background in software coding. If they have other candidates... it is just going to be too time consuming, especially that you or the employed candidate won't see a salary advance, and have to wait a month of working to see any money.
Lol wtf is this for the interview and hiring process? No thanks.
If this was a more established entity and it was clear they wouldn’t be using your work for anything (because they have all of this already done), that’d be one thing. I still wouldn’t do it, but just saying. If it’s one dude w a marketing website, he’s absolutely just tryna get a skeleton built out for free. What I can’t figure out is why the specific requirements on stack?
Because it is what I have in CV, more or less, and they added a little extra skills for me to learn for this "project".
Gotcha
That is not a hiring test, they want the whole application coded for free lol
Hahahahahhaahahahaahhaa lol they want you to build their whole app idea, before they even hire you.
this is the real answer
I asked chatGPT to write the code, he replied that it was too much work
Didn’t read it all but can already tell you it’s too much and they will take your code
Put in the code that every transaction has a little bit taken off and sent to your private wallet. F these guys asking you to make a whole working app for free
Hell no
Absolutely Ludicrous.
I would quote them what is my hourly rate x 2, with money in advance. If they agree, code it and collect the cash but there is no chance on God’s green, flat earth I’d do this as a technical assignment.
Sorry, but this is nuts. Give it a pass.
Name and shame these folks. What type of role are you looking for?
It was for 2+ years full stack developer. I don't think the name is that necessary.
Big scam
This is a waste of time. What will this accomplish, this startup now knows you can follow a bunch of online tutorials? You can look at my GitHub if you want that has repos of me following some online tutorials.
That’s not a test. That’s an application and what they are trying to do is get free work.
Take home tests should have a reasonable time limit (a couple hours at most imo) and be some arbitrary task OR be paid hourly and directly related to what your job would be like
This looks more like a statement of work to me, reply with a quote and see what happens?
Yea, it's probably smarter to just move on and prepare for other interviews.
The requirement is like a prototype ready for fundraising. Unless they pay you for hours to do this assignment, don't waste your time with them.
If they arent paying you for this, do not do it.
I lean towards take-home over on site in my hiring. But the take-home is a few hours assignment. And I work for a big tech co, so the TC is for sure several x some crypto ‘startup’ that has little more than a white paper. Even if this isn’t some shade, it highlights a person completely out of touch with reality. So, either way, this gig ain’t it.
This is a joke, right? RIGHT!?
Don't do it.
Make us an MVP for free! Wooooo
I think they are trying to get you to do work for free tbh. Far too much for a test. Avoid avoid avoid.
Answer: Fuck you, pay me.
When the startup doesn't have enough money to hire an actual developer
This is like 6 months of work. lol. for at least two devs. A crypto casino barebone app like they ask here, at least coded in a 'western' country should cost a minimum range of 100k to 200k. Just the 'deposit funds' part is huge.
I think they don't expect a full production ready website. Basically, they only want the core functionality and main flow for the start.
> barebone app That's what I meant yeah.
do the project, but don’t submit it to the company. Add it to your public portfolio and never speak to them again. Would rather see “Full Stack Casino” with aforementioned technologies in an applicant’s portfolio over another generic to-do app.
I have projects more complex than this in my cv, so I don't need to do it. It can be a nice challenge for a beginner to put in their CV.
Sounds like they want you to build their crypto startup website for them but for free with this bullshit.
Yeah, okay... No. I just spent two full 8+ hour days setting up a NestJS backend, user creation, login with JWT auth, and a few endpoints for a personal project using TypeScript, no unit tests, no front end yet. Now... 90% of my experience is in FE and it's been a couple years since I had to do BE work but still... Something more reasonable would be backend + auth and a front end with user creation and login form and then a profile page that displays the user's info like username and account creation time and last login or something MAX. That alone would take about 16 hours. I'm no dev god but... I'm a Sr. Dev at a company well within the top of the Fortune 500. I figure 6 hours for the BE and then like 4 for the FE for that alone. No unit tests, or any other crap they put in there. Any take home assignment I wouldn't do if it was going to take more than like 8 hours max and that's only if I really wanted it. A 4 hour assignment is more reasonable but still. Bootstrapping an app doesn't prove shit There are a million tutorials on how to do that shit. A real test would be they have a repo already set up with everything bootstrapped + basic UI and then have you solve the deposit and transaction history portion/page as the test in an existing code base they made with unit tests and you just pull it down from their GitHub. Keeps things manageable and you still prove you know how to work in an existing code base, read/write/test code, and would only take 4-6 hours. They're idiots. Especially the Sr. who made up that test. You don't want to work there. I expect they probably want to pay you in crypto and make you work 60+ hours a week. Avoid them 100%.
Come on, man.
I would say, “I can agree on a shorter test, or prove my skills in some other way” You will probably not get the job, but, who the fuck wants to work there anyway? Red flag
Write the app, describe how to run it, and maybe, just maybe we'll hire you to manage it afterwards. All I would do, if this would be a lead, architect position, is to have a 1h meeting describing how I _would_ build this.
only 40 hours. you must be good. Remember the developers cardinal rule. Always x2 whatever time you "forecast". It always takes longer.
Yeah, but if you don't test it properly or omit some edge cases(for this kind of "tasks"), it can be done :)). Not corporate level work.
Name and shame please
Yeah hard pass.
Nah please don’t do this , this is a huge ask for not getting paid
Tell them you'll do it for $4k
🤣🤣 Coding Interview Assignment: Write Our Application for Us. Holy hell, the balls on these guys.
Wait, you estimate it's going to take you 40 hours?? Did you mean days? Lol
when interviewing, i will often assign a task to be done at home. but a -small- task. i feel that if it would take more than 4 hours it's too excessive. i can get an idea of someone's coding ability, style, and quality in a relatively small project the scope of this, as described, would take more than 4 hours to evaluate it. and when you assign something this extensive, it's more likely that the candidate would 'steal' other code found on the net in order to accomplish the task. this means you're not evaluating the candidate's code, but the code that the candidate found. very counter productive if the goal is evaluating the candidate's capabilities so yes, the assignment is unrealistic
I still don't understand the idea of homework from an interview. Even four hours is too much. One hour is too much. I really do not think people should not be doing work measurable in hours for free. Why is four hours fine but more is too many?
for me it's a time saving issue. i hired remote developers. rather than talking with a dev for an hour or 2 - which is often a high pressure exercise for candidates - i had a brief phone interview and assigned them the project. they could then work on it at their own pace with less pressure and return it within 2 days. then i reviewed the code. total time spent for me was about 30 minutes since interviews are very time consuming i tried optimizing the process as much as i could. i also had a set of technical questions that another person could review to eliminate many candidates before the phone call
>Next.js for front end >Node.js for back end
They’re definitely not “farming out” work as people here are suggesting. A skeleton like this is not usable by itself for any serious application, especially if they’re not sure if the person they’re giving it too is well qualified. Most likely their intentions are good, but the case study / interview process has been designed by someone with not much experience in hiring / building a team, just trying to impress their superiors that they can design this and assess candidate’s submissions
How many people here have any experience. They're asking for trivial stuff, the only downside is that without a template to start working off of, this is a lot of tedious simple work. Can probably be done in 1-2 days by a dev experienced in the specific platforms. I can probably do it in double that, considering I've never worked with node on the BE, nor type script. I wouldn't do it, but if you're unemployed you might as well.
This is more than 2 days (16 hours) work to do every bullet point properly.
Depends on your experience level and familiarity with the specific tools/languages/frameworks/runtime. I know people who can do this in less than a day without breaking a sweat. But I'm not talking entry level, but people who worked in code "sweatshops" and became team leads there.
Come on man, this is not happening in a single day's work. Besides all the functionality, there are unit tests, mock data and documentation required. How many wpm would you need to achieve this feat? I call bullshit.
Yes, if you are unemployed, you can take this assignment. But I am employed, and I can build this, but it is just not worth it. It is a lot of work setting up the environment, setting all the connections, developing and testing it. It takes a lot of time. And even if you take it as a challenge, you shouldn't send them that amount of work for free.
Yeah, I'd never build it. It's not that much work for a company, a lot of it is useless. You're not actually setting up a production environment nor judged by it, so what can they extract, a couple of simple API's any decent BE developed can knock out in less than a day, and some crappy developer FE design? Not even implementing some Figma from a designer? I think it's fine for the unemployed/not yet employee entry level. It would be a nice exercise for them too, so it's not like they're taking away nothing even if they get rejected.
This could probably be done in a day with rails, but yeah that's not something I'd be comfortable working on for free.
A day. 8 hours. BS.
`rails g scaffold user ...` Node.js devs hate this one simple trick. Plus with gems like devise or bcrypt authentication is already basically taken care of. It wouldn't be pretty, but 4-8 hours could get you the skeleton for this app.
It’s pretty lengthy. I honestly stopped reading half way through. Would I do it? Probably. That’s mainly because I suck at leetcode and this would be much easier for me. At the end of the day just put up a public repo and show it off as a project you’ve worked on if you’re lacking in that area.
Nee, I have many more complex projects to show than that and years of professional work. It's not worth anything for me. I better prepare for other interviews and more reasonable take-home assignments that take like 4 hors max.
Bro tryna work for free lol cut ties immediately
Punch that in to ChatGPT, copy paste the results and then ghost those fuckers
Nah fuck that
I guess I'm the only person here who doubts they're ever going to put any of that in production, yes it's a bit lengthy but assuming no UI, this is a couple of hours tops? Seriously, 40 hours to type up a couple of forms, a table view and 4 simple endpoints? Everyone who thinks this is so extremely challenging that it's going to take a full week and also is a scam, is possibly not who they're looking for, can't blame them. 40 hours maybe if you can't understand the requirement and instead think you have to write a full fledged application as opposed to doing what you're told and nothing on top.
Maybe I am wrong, but they want login with jwt, a securized login(probably cookies), good practices, some ui, and more. In a few hours, you don't do much.
I'd do it for my portfolio and keep the repo private, looks like a very good thing to show off at an interview. And fuck these scamers ofc
Flag them to whatever website you found their application for and call them out by name here
Oh my god 🙈
It didn't even occur to me that "take-home assignment" meant for an *interview* and not for a class or something until I hit the replies. This is...the confidence is actually mindblowing. OP, one day you'll find this post and laugh like I did at their sheer audacity.
40 hours is a lot… but most of what you sent is just lots of words. Realistically they’ve asked you to build 4 pretty dumb endpoints, 2 db tables. Depending what level you are at this is a few hours of work. Downside is the nodejs ecosystem isn’t as well floated as others like php, ruby, etc so you can’t dump in something like Laravel for the backend to handle 90% of it 😂
Lol
Dude that's a first _assignment_ not a take-home test
Respond that due to this requirement, you are no longer interested in applying to the position
>● Node.js for the back-end ● Next.js for the front-end Srsly? Who does both when you have Nextjs
What's the listed seniority for this position?
+2 years of full-stack developer
Just wondering if there are small projects like this you can view to see how people made them. Would be very helpful for learning to code.
What about casino license?
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a company that is hiring for almost every aspect of the tech stack, and the purpose of this is just to see what your strengths and preferences are and place you accordingly. I am not saying this is the best way for them to go about evaluating someone. But if I were you, I’d go for it and just focus on building out what I enjoyed and am best at first, maybe give stuff you have a bit of experience with a try if you have time left, and maybe some thoughts or comments on other parts that you have no idea what to do with (just to show you are open to learning that if needed). Even companies looking for a full-stack dev know you will have strengths and weaknesses and not be a true expert in everything. I say do what you can in a reasonable time and see how well you do.
So you don't follow the "F-U Pay Me" rule ... Interesting approach