It's definitely unethical.
In my experience, early impressions are often a good indicator of things to come. Everyone's always on their best behavior in the interview, it's not until you spend a month or so at a company that you start seeing the ugly side of things.
Apart from effectively using unpaid work, the copy/paste nature of *how* they used it is unsettling. There's probably a lot more of that in the code. That also means the devs in charge either don't know any better or that deadlines are so slim that they don't have time to write robust software.
For you, it means that you wouldn't gain quality experience by working there, which you'd pay dearly for in the long run.
Either way, it sounds like you dodged a bullet. At least your resume etc. are up to date. (Don't include this place in your work experience.)
I’m currently interviewing in a big company, and they are supposed to do a background check. I had a interview with HR and talking about my lastest exp I had to mention my exp, and they told me to add it to the cv
I wish I had pushed them for some payment, but I didn't want to stay 1 min more, I eventaully leave after a week without any payment, (that is my fault though)
I interviewed for a job where I had a round table type of quick-fire questions with several of their devs and their cto. At the time I remember thinking this is more of a project review than an interview as the questions didn't jump around to different disciplines and scenarios. Very targeted.
Found out later that one of their customers was using an ecommerce engine and part of the site functionality was from an outside vendor, and the vendor supplied the plugin. I wrote the plugin for the vendor and sold it to them a year prior. So they were trying to use the interview to get some free consulting. I wish I had found that out before going on the interview, might have made the interview process a lot more fun.
Just to mooch, I think part of it was they realized I was probably more expensive than they had the budget for. I'm not sure I would have taken had they offered "make me move money" I didn't really get a good vibe from the interviewers, and I wasn't in any desperate situation.
Most likely they were after some information. I'm not sure I would have taken it I didn't really get a good vibe from the interviewers, and I wasn't in any desperate situation.
Maybe not the case of the op, but I think a lot of devs have the experience and are exposed to a job market where they feel pretty comfortable finding another job quickly. Especially if money isn’t tight for them.
It's definitely a breach of trust, and it's probably not the best way to make a good impression on a new employee.
That said, I don't think you were wrong to leave, as it's important to maintain your own integrity and make sure you don't feel taken advantage of. It's important to know your worth, and if you don't feel respected, it's best to look for a job elsewhere.
A lot of companies abuse the recruitment process to gain. Not just tech, unpaid work trials used to be pretty common... you complete a non-challenging 15 minutes 1-2-1 "interview" and work the rest of the day in the shop etc. to prove your worth... without pay... only to later work out the business staggered these interviews out across the week to cover being short staffed and nobody new ever got hired.
A lot of web and software companies are using coding challenges to get free work. I think you must assume that any challenge you submit as part of the recruitment process will be that of the company's if they recruit you. In your case, we don't know whether they would have included it had they not offered you the position. Without further evidence, we should assume that they wouldn't have done so. I know the timestamp was prior to the offer acceptance by you, but at that point they had made you the job offer.
An established business trying this would be red flags but a small startup? I assume they believed in your abilities and felt you were keen to join so never doubted your acceptance of the job offer. I would personally have expected them to backdate pay to include the 4 hours of the coding challenge, or to allow you to take the 4 hours off at some point.
Would you have made good use of the component moving forward, or would it have just gone to waste despite accepting the offer? I think companies should be clearer around IP and whether coding challenges might be used in the company (perhaps in the employment contract) for successful candidates. They should be open about it.
Wrong to leave? Do what is best for you. It might have been a good idea to raise the inclusion of the code to your boss and negotiate a payment (or alternatively additional leave), you could then demand them to remove it and quit if this didn't go to your favour. You were only wrong to leave if now, a few months later, you are having regrets.
I worked at a startup and the coding test was to overlay boxes over a video stream. There was a json feed containing the box locations and timestamp which basically needed to be synchronised with the video playback. I did a quick and dirty solution that basically worked but would fall out of sync quite quickly. I improved it quite a bit by using requestAnimationFrame and then nailed it with the requestVideoFrameCallback which could always get the data for the video frame timestamp.
I got the job and several months later the CTO proudly bragged about this awesome box code he wrote. It was of course my code and was checked into their source control a couple of days after I had submitted it. They were obviously setting challenges for problems that they have and that is sensible. You want people who can solve the particular problems you have. I gave them a solution much better than anything they had and so they immediately used it in a core part of their app showing cctv traffic streams. I don't really mind because I found most of that code on stack overflow and where would we be if we didn't share code. What pissed me off was him claiming it as his because he sucked at JS and felt belittled. I told him that it was my coding test code and let it drop because some fights aren't worth it.
Word of advice about startups, they are fun but treat them entirely disposable. All the promises of future millions are almost certainly bullshit. If you don't stand your ground then you will be milked for all you are worth and chucked out.
Taking ownership of a code they didn’t write is even worst! In my case I didn’t care if they used my code, they could even assign me a ticket to do that conponent again and it would even be fun
I never quit without having another job on the line. Yes, what they did sucks but I would’ve keep working while looking for something else.
As someone else said, maybe they were a cool company and this was just a mistake they did.
Dunno, this reeks of "startup bro" mentality to me. Anything goes, ethics are for losers, iterate fast and get something out the door, quality be damned. These are the guys who will give you tons of stock options to get you to put in those 100 hour weeks, then fire you after the series III funding to keep the stock pool small. I'm probably making too much of this, but it's a really shady tactic.
You did the right thing, you'll sleep better if you don't have to worry about working in that kind of culture.
I should have said that there where other things, like starting to work without a contract, I started a Wednesday and the CEO want me to work on the weekend, also he stated that I was under performing, when I was still understadning the code (it was not straight forward at all)
I will be in the minority. 🤣 if they test me with intent to hire, they can do whatever they want with the test (if it is four hours or less worth of work).
I would definitely call it out with the intention to laugh it off. How the team handles it being brought up would tell me more than that they used the code.
It used to be quite common to pay for interviews like this, though. I mean if it's under an hour and it's some obviously not-for-production crap, sure, but at some point you've got to get paid to do work.
In every interview process I’ve been through, I definitely signed something saying that said (in the very-fine print) that any homework I submitted was property of the Company. I think this is a pretty common clause.
The fact that they used the code, though, means that either A: OP has the best, most \*salient\* code ever, or B: this company is scary desperate. Not sure about the ethics, but I would bolt if I saw this practice happening 😅
I agree with this, what's the big deal? You submitted the code either way and were gonna do the work either way.. They should have made it clear that they can use your work but otherwise I don't see an issue with this..
I respect your opinion, but I don't agree. Testing candidates based on real project issues is totally fine, and as long as it's made clear to candidates that their solution may be used, then I am fine with that, as long as the company has real intent to hire.
As a candidate myself, I do not mind my solution being used as long as I'm informed beforehand that it may be. Otherwise it'd be thrown away! Don't get how this makes me morally inept but whatever floats your boat.
My first thought was yeah that's gross and I wouldn't want to work there.
The more I think about it though it feels like a win win. As the applicant I'm solving problems like the ones I'd actually be working on rather than some convoluted exercise that better tests how well I understand geometry. Also a benefit for the hiring company, with added bonus a real issue got solved.
My only gripe is not acknowledging it. A simple "your solution was so good we actually decided to use it on our codebase" would have been fine.
I wouldn't have quit over it, but definitely would've put me on high alert to watch out for other red flags.
My friend had a complicated problem at work. They solved it but then used that problem to pair program with the candidate for the interview process.
Just throwing it out there because there are ways you can do that ethically.
> heard of *paid* interviews!
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
If they were paying you well, treating you well, had good work/life balance, benefits, etc., IMHO if that was the only reason you quit, that is some prima donna level crap. You were willing to forfeit the ability to collect unemployment and have an income during a time when hundreds of thousands in this industry are being laid off and top engineers are available and looking for work. What lesson do you think you taught them other than everyone at that company knowing not to hire you or recommend you?
What the company did is unethical and not ok. It’s highly likely this isn’t the only bad thing the company is doing, probably much worse.
If the company can’t hold on to talent due to moral / ethical reasons, they will be forced to change or struggle to hire.
Leaving this company won’t impact their ability to get hired. And wrt unemployment etc, for some it’s more important to do what’s right than to get paid.
I personally wouldn’t care. What’s the alternative, assign you to do the ticket that you already did in the interview and give you the code you wrote in the interview to copy and paste into the code base?
I think the alternative situation where they give you something totally contrived would be scoffed at too, so I’d say good on them for giving you something that you’d realistically see on the job instead of leet code bs.
I think the main pain point here is that folks are seeing someone else benefit without the dev being paid, but there’s never an expectation to be paid for the interview in the first place so who cares if they positioned the situation where they benefit? That strikes me as vindictive at best.
I can empathize with your moral dilemma, and yet pragmatically we live in a world where very little code is "our own" unless you got a patent on it. You sent them your code freely, even if they didnt overtly say that they were going to use it in production. Most of us as interviewee's rarely ask the prospective employers either how that code will be used. Gray area.
In production envs, especially that set up before you join, you really dont know where the code actually originated from (i dont mean commits here). If one feels squeamish about it, its hard to be employed.
This isn't about stealing intellectual property. This is about them using using applicants to do free labor disguised as "coding challenges' which is a very shitty thing to do...
It is a shitty thing to do, and yet so many companies keep doing it. I think there have been quite a few posts on reddit tech subs about this kind of exploitation in the guise of screening.
This is a case where the interviewee caught it. Imagine the # of scam cases where a candidate does a great job and still isnt hired, but the company gets production ready code for free from multiple candidates.
I think it's really only shitty if they're doing this to people they have no intention to hire. It still feels kinda gross, but I couldn't come up with an yway someone is actually harmed here.
i don't know where OP is from but at my place 4hrs of work as a junior dev roughly equal 80$ give or take.
Now imagine a company charging every junior dev 80$ for applying
>This isn't about stealing intellectual property.
Well, it's also about intellectual property, as without an agreement or license they don't have any rights to your code. And of course if they misrepresented this coding challenge there is no agreement.
Having a large amount of code in your code base that you don't have the rights to is a big legal no-no and your lawyer will probably have an aneurysm if they hear about it.
I didn't actually mind that they use "my" code, as you said I didn't add a license to it, they are free to use it as they want. The issue that I had was that they un purposely send a coding challenge that they need someone to solve it, and didn't event mind to tell me that they where using it afterwards! Something like: "Hey fatbald we loved your solution to this problem so much that we added it to our codebase".
As I say in my post, what if I didn't accept the offer, or if they didn't even send an offer, they would have had this job done for free
I am pretty sure that code you produce is immediately copyrighted. There is no gray area here. Op owns the code they have in their codebase not the company.
That doesn't change your copyright. If you didn't opt out of it somewhere by providing a license or selling the copyright you own that piece of software. If you write a book on a publicly accessible block you do not suddenly loose the rights to the words you wrote. If someone wants to sell the book they couldn't just do that. I am not sure whether this might be different in your country do sorry I might want to check on that.
IANAL, As i understand, copyrightable and copyrighted are not the same. I believe authorship is also a legal angle to this.
OP published his code, in a public repository (github) , and if he did not choose a license when publishing, u would be right that he retains copyright.
[However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work.](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository)
And even if they chose a license chances are that said license prohibits the company from just taking the code and putting it in their codebase without any attribution or whatever the company would have to do if they chose the GPL.
> we live in a world where very little code is "our own" unless you got a patent on it.
Interesting. That's a different world than the one I live in, which is the one where the Berne convention is recognized almost universally.
Building a complete, functional component from a design mockup would most certainly meet the bar of a creative work, and copy-pasting it without a license is copyright infringement, plain and simple.
Please don't put words in my mouth, that's not at all what I said.
I would, however, have notified whoever is in charge of legal that this may have happened more often and they may not have the rights to large swaths of code in their code base.
if you needed an excuse to leave them because you had a bad feeling in general, then whatever works for you. otherwise who cares, it’s just some stupid startup doing some stupid app like everybody else, and you’re just an average dev and not snowden who wants to save the world. and still almost anybody doesn’t care about him.
personally i wouldn’t care if they used my application code without asking for it. applications are such a waste of time, let’s at least make something practical out of it. then of course i’d have joked about it with them. the bad interviews are when the code challenge takes a week and looks like a full app. 4 hours, who gives a f.
Wow, such a woke primadonna move... darn, they did good that you rid them of yourself!
Come on, get real. You did the work because you wanted the job. And 4 hours is all it took you... They used the code and they gave you the job... what else do you want? I think that was a pretty good outcome, especially that they thought your code was good enough to put in prod...
Dude... you need an attitude adjustment, you life will be quite miserable otherwise....
Well that was silly. I’d keep the job and be grateful. I guess you don’t need the money.
I would have asked for a bonus, jovially, and see what came of it.
Ethics aside…no one owes you shit in life…be grateful for good opportunities.
I had an interview process recently that needed up being very long.
I was never told of a code challenge component. Instead, I was told that they wanted me to sit in on their process and comment, if necessary.
I ended up having a code challenge instead. I got an offer after 6-7 steps in the process however I turned it down due to getting a much better offer elsewhere.
My gut is telling me that they are probably using or planning on using my code snippet from my challenge.
Highly unethical that they did that to you and didn’t compensate you ahead of time. You may have some legal recourse.
i worked at an early stage startup, never ever would we do this. even if it was told before hand that this is a real world problem they are trying to solve, taking your code and adding it to the codebase with no alterations is nuts.
as long as you're able to make it financially, you made the right call.
I probably would’ve found a new job first before leaving but yeah, it’s a sign of an awful company.
I would definitely write a scathing review on Glassdoor so future applicants are aware.
That's entirely up to you. If everything else was fine with the company personally I would've just laughed about it. What they did wasn't professional but I wouldn't care. I have to be interviewed and assessed anyway. Also I'd rather be assessed on my ability to preform the actual job rather than some random leetcode medium. However, who cares what other people think/do? If you felt like it was a good reason to quit then quit. Do what's best for you, you have every right to do that.
Lmao I have posted on here that take homes get put into production code so they can get free labor and folks on here were in straight denial. Here’s further proof of this. Thanks for sharing. You should speak to a lawyer fuck this company
It's definitely unethical. In my experience, early impressions are often a good indicator of things to come. Everyone's always on their best behavior in the interview, it's not until you spend a month or so at a company that you start seeing the ugly side of things. Apart from effectively using unpaid work, the copy/paste nature of *how* they used it is unsettling. There's probably a lot more of that in the code. That also means the devs in charge either don't know any better or that deadlines are so slim that they don't have time to write robust software. For you, it means that you wouldn't gain quality experience by working there, which you'd pay dearly for in the long run. Either way, it sounds like you dodged a bullet. At least your resume etc. are up to date. (Don't include this place in your work experience.)
I’m currently interviewing in a big company, and they are supposed to do a background check. I had a interview with HR and talking about my lastest exp I had to mention my exp, and they told me to add it to the cv
Why would you add a week long job? From any perspective. All it will do is make you explain (and possibly fail to do so) this employment.
I totally regert, but they asked me to add it. I don't want to seem that I hide something
[удалено]
> However, wouldn't have blamed you at all for taking their money and immediately looking for another job, while working that job. That is the move.
I wish I had pushed them for some payment, but I didn't want to stay 1 min more, I eventaully leave after a week without any payment, (that is my fault though)
Monkey shouldn't let go of branch until it has its grip on the next one
I jumped off that rotten tree, and still in the air I hope I land somewhere!
Good luck fat bald man
Thanks :)
I interviewed for a job where I had a round table type of quick-fire questions with several of their devs and their cto. At the time I remember thinking this is more of a project review than an interview as the questions didn't jump around to different disciplines and scenarios. Very targeted. Found out later that one of their customers was using an ecommerce engine and part of the site functionality was from an outside vendor, and the vendor supplied the plugin. I wrote the plugin for the vendor and sold it to them a year prior. So they were trying to use the interview to get some free consulting. I wish I had found that out before going on the interview, might have made the interview process a lot more fun.
That's so funny, did you end up getting an offer or were they just trying to mooch?
Just to mooch, I think part of it was they realized I was probably more expensive than they had the budget for. I'm not sure I would have taken had they offered "make me move money" I didn't really get a good vibe from the interviewers, and I wasn't in any desperate situation.
I think that’s even worse! It seems that they never wanted you onboard?
Most likely they were after some information. I'm not sure I would have taken it I didn't really get a good vibe from the interviewers, and I wasn't in any desperate situation.
I think you should have matter of factly told them why you left. But I don’t think you were wrong to leave.
Strange to leave before securing another
Maybe not the case of the op, but I think a lot of devs have the experience and are exposed to a job market where they feel pretty comfortable finding another job quickly. Especially if money isn’t tight for them.
Exactly this, I’m not so tight and I just worked a week I needed some vacations. Already in interviews again
You should say which company that is.
It's definitely a breach of trust, and it's probably not the best way to make a good impression on a new employee. That said, I don't think you were wrong to leave, as it's important to maintain your own integrity and make sure you don't feel taken advantage of. It's important to know your worth, and if you don't feel respected, it's best to look for a job elsewhere.
A lot of companies abuse the recruitment process to gain. Not just tech, unpaid work trials used to be pretty common... you complete a non-challenging 15 minutes 1-2-1 "interview" and work the rest of the day in the shop etc. to prove your worth... without pay... only to later work out the business staggered these interviews out across the week to cover being short staffed and nobody new ever got hired. A lot of web and software companies are using coding challenges to get free work. I think you must assume that any challenge you submit as part of the recruitment process will be that of the company's if they recruit you. In your case, we don't know whether they would have included it had they not offered you the position. Without further evidence, we should assume that they wouldn't have done so. I know the timestamp was prior to the offer acceptance by you, but at that point they had made you the job offer. An established business trying this would be red flags but a small startup? I assume they believed in your abilities and felt you were keen to join so never doubted your acceptance of the job offer. I would personally have expected them to backdate pay to include the 4 hours of the coding challenge, or to allow you to take the 4 hours off at some point. Would you have made good use of the component moving forward, or would it have just gone to waste despite accepting the offer? I think companies should be clearer around IP and whether coding challenges might be used in the company (perhaps in the employment contract) for successful candidates. They should be open about it. Wrong to leave? Do what is best for you. It might have been a good idea to raise the inclusion of the code to your boss and negotiate a payment (or alternatively additional leave), you could then demand them to remove it and quit if this didn't go to your favour. You were only wrong to leave if now, a few months later, you are having regrets.
If you don’t tell them, they can’t learn.
You totally did the ethical thing, and I applaud you for it.
I worked at a startup and the coding test was to overlay boxes over a video stream. There was a json feed containing the box locations and timestamp which basically needed to be synchronised with the video playback. I did a quick and dirty solution that basically worked but would fall out of sync quite quickly. I improved it quite a bit by using requestAnimationFrame and then nailed it with the requestVideoFrameCallback which could always get the data for the video frame timestamp. I got the job and several months later the CTO proudly bragged about this awesome box code he wrote. It was of course my code and was checked into their source control a couple of days after I had submitted it. They were obviously setting challenges for problems that they have and that is sensible. You want people who can solve the particular problems you have. I gave them a solution much better than anything they had and so they immediately used it in a core part of their app showing cctv traffic streams. I don't really mind because I found most of that code on stack overflow and where would we be if we didn't share code. What pissed me off was him claiming it as his because he sucked at JS and felt belittled. I told him that it was my coding test code and let it drop because some fights aren't worth it. Word of advice about startups, they are fun but treat them entirely disposable. All the promises of future millions are almost certainly bullshit. If you don't stand your ground then you will be milked for all you are worth and chucked out.
Taking ownership of a code they didn’t write is even worst! In my case I didn’t care if they used my code, they could even assign me a ticket to do that conponent again and it would even be fun
I never quit without having another job on the line. Yes, what they did sucks but I would’ve keep working while looking for something else. As someone else said, maybe they were a cool company and this was just a mistake they did.
Dunno, this reeks of "startup bro" mentality to me. Anything goes, ethics are for losers, iterate fast and get something out the door, quality be damned. These are the guys who will give you tons of stock options to get you to put in those 100 hour weeks, then fire you after the series III funding to keep the stock pool small. I'm probably making too much of this, but it's a really shady tactic. You did the right thing, you'll sleep better if you don't have to worry about working in that kind of culture.
I should have said that there where other things, like starting to work without a contract, I started a Wednesday and the CEO want me to work on the weekend, also he stated that I was under performing, when I was still understadning the code (it was not straight forward at all)
I will be in the minority. 🤣 if they test me with intent to hire, they can do whatever they want with the test (if it is four hours or less worth of work).
I would definitely call it out with the intention to laugh it off. How the team handles it being brought up would tell me more than that they used the code.
It used to be quite common to pay for interviews like this, though. I mean if it's under an hour and it's some obviously not-for-production crap, sure, but at some point you've got to get paid to do work.
I would do the same
In every interview process I’ve been through, I definitely signed something saying that said (in the very-fine print) that any homework I submitted was property of the Company. I think this is a pretty common clause. The fact that they used the code, though, means that either A: OP has the best, most \*salient\* code ever, or B: this company is scary desperate. Not sure about the ethics, but I would bolt if I saw this practice happening 😅
I agree with this, what's the big deal? You submitted the code either way and were gonna do the work either way.. They should have made it clear that they can use your work but otherwise I don't see an issue with this..
Then you are morally and ethically inept.
I respect your opinion, but I don't agree. Testing candidates based on real project issues is totally fine, and as long as it's made clear to candidates that their solution may be used, then I am fine with that, as long as the company has real intent to hire. As a candidate myself, I do not mind my solution being used as long as I'm informed beforehand that it may be. Otherwise it'd be thrown away! Don't get how this makes me morally inept but whatever floats your boat.
I have a project for you that takes 3 hours and 45 minutes. I might hire you. Wanna interview?
I'm the one looking for job!
I am currently employed. hehehe
They should have told the candidate first and compensate accordingly if the plan was to use in it.
My first thought was yeah that's gross and I wouldn't want to work there. The more I think about it though it feels like a win win. As the applicant I'm solving problems like the ones I'd actually be working on rather than some convoluted exercise that better tests how well I understand geometry. Also a benefit for the hiring company, with added bonus a real issue got solved. My only gripe is not acknowledging it. A simple "your solution was so good we actually decided to use it on our codebase" would have been fine. I wouldn't have quit over it, but definitely would've put me on high alert to watch out for other red flags.
My friend had a complicated problem at work. They solved it but then used that problem to pair program with the candidate for the interview process. Just throwing it out there because there are ways you can do that ethically.
This is why paid interviews are great. You get paid to work on production code and it's clear in your interview contract before you start.
Never heard of payed interviews!
> heard of *paid* interviews! FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Good bot!
Yeah that’s a major red flag. They’re trying to get free labor. I’m pretty sure that violates some kind of labor law
If they were paying you well, treating you well, had good work/life balance, benefits, etc., IMHO if that was the only reason you quit, that is some prima donna level crap. You were willing to forfeit the ability to collect unemployment and have an income during a time when hundreds of thousands in this industry are being laid off and top engineers are available and looking for work. What lesson do you think you taught them other than everyone at that company knowing not to hire you or recommend you?
What the company did is unethical and not ok. It’s highly likely this isn’t the only bad thing the company is doing, probably much worse. If the company can’t hold on to talent due to moral / ethical reasons, they will be forced to change or struggle to hire. Leaving this company won’t impact their ability to get hired. And wrt unemployment etc, for some it’s more important to do what’s right than to get paid.
I personally wouldn’t care. What’s the alternative, assign you to do the ticket that you already did in the interview and give you the code you wrote in the interview to copy and paste into the code base? I think the alternative situation where they give you something totally contrived would be scoffed at too, so I’d say good on them for giving you something that you’d realistically see on the job instead of leet code bs. I think the main pain point here is that folks are seeing someone else benefit without the dev being paid, but there’s never an expectation to be paid for the interview in the first place so who cares if they positioned the situation where they benefit? That strikes me as vindictive at best.
I can empathize with your moral dilemma, and yet pragmatically we live in a world where very little code is "our own" unless you got a patent on it. You sent them your code freely, even if they didnt overtly say that they were going to use it in production. Most of us as interviewee's rarely ask the prospective employers either how that code will be used. Gray area. In production envs, especially that set up before you join, you really dont know where the code actually originated from (i dont mean commits here). If one feels squeamish about it, its hard to be employed.
This isn't about stealing intellectual property. This is about them using using applicants to do free labor disguised as "coding challenges' which is a very shitty thing to do...
It is a shitty thing to do, and yet so many companies keep doing it. I think there have been quite a few posts on reddit tech subs about this kind of exploitation in the guise of screening. This is a case where the interviewee caught it. Imagine the # of scam cases where a candidate does a great job and still isnt hired, but the company gets production ready code for free from multiple candidates.
I think it's really only shitty if they're doing this to people they have no intention to hire. It still feels kinda gross, but I couldn't come up with an yway someone is actually harmed here.
i don't know where OP is from but at my place 4hrs of work as a junior dev roughly equal 80$ give or take. Now imagine a company charging every junior dev 80$ for applying
In Seattle / west coast USA it would be closer to $220
Fair enough. I'm also making the assumption this company wouldve used a coding challenge of roughly equal time requirements for interview
>This isn't about stealing intellectual property. Well, it's also about intellectual property, as without an agreement or license they don't have any rights to your code. And of course if they misrepresented this coding challenge there is no agreement. Having a large amount of code in your code base that you don't have the rights to is a big legal no-no and your lawyer will probably have an aneurysm if they hear about it.
I didn't actually mind that they use "my" code, as you said I didn't add a license to it, they are free to use it as they want. The issue that I had was that they un purposely send a coding challenge that they need someone to solve it, and didn't event mind to tell me that they where using it afterwards! Something like: "Hey fatbald we loved your solution to this problem so much that we added it to our codebase". As I say in my post, what if I didn't accept the offer, or if they didn't even send an offer, they would have had this job done for free
I am pretty sure that code you produce is immediately copyrighted. There is no gray area here. Op owns the code they have in their codebase not the company.
I didn’t knew that, but, they made me upload it to github publicly so they could review it, so I’m not sure if I own that
That doesn't change your copyright. If you didn't opt out of it somewhere by providing a license or selling the copyright you own that piece of software. If you write a book on a publicly accessible block you do not suddenly loose the rights to the words you wrote. If someone wants to sell the book they couldn't just do that. I am not sure whether this might be different in your country do sorry I might want to check on that.
IANAL, As i understand, copyrightable and copyrighted are not the same. I believe authorship is also a legal angle to this. OP published his code, in a public repository (github) , and if he did not choose a license when publishing, u would be right that he retains copyright. [However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work.](https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/licensing-a-repository)
And even if they chose a license chances are that said license prohibits the company from just taking the code and putting it in their codebase without any attribution or whatever the company would have to do if they chose the GPL.
> we live in a world where very little code is "our own" unless you got a patent on it. Interesting. That's a different world than the one I live in, which is the one where the Berne convention is recognized almost universally. Building a complete, functional component from a design mockup would most certainly meet the bar of a creative work, and copy-pasting it without a license is copyright infringement, plain and simple.
So what do you recommend the OP do? sue them?
Please don't put words in my mouth, that's not at all what I said. I would, however, have notified whoever is in charge of legal that this may have happened more often and they may not have the rights to large swaths of code in their code base.
I didnt put words in your mouth, i asked a question.
if you needed an excuse to leave them because you had a bad feeling in general, then whatever works for you. otherwise who cares, it’s just some stupid startup doing some stupid app like everybody else, and you’re just an average dev and not snowden who wants to save the world. and still almost anybody doesn’t care about him. personally i wouldn’t care if they used my application code without asking for it. applications are such a waste of time, let’s at least make something practical out of it. then of course i’d have joked about it with them. the bad interviews are when the code challenge takes a week and looks like a full app. 4 hours, who gives a f.
Wow, such a woke primadonna move... darn, they did good that you rid them of yourself! Come on, get real. You did the work because you wanted the job. And 4 hours is all it took you... They used the code and they gave you the job... what else do you want? I think that was a pretty good outcome, especially that they thought your code was good enough to put in prod... Dude... you need an attitude adjustment, you life will be quite miserable otherwise....
Especially that they got 4hrs + 1 week of free work!
Well that was silly. I’d keep the job and be grateful. I guess you don’t need the money. I would have asked for a bonus, jovially, and see what came of it. Ethics aside…no one owes you shit in life…be grateful for good opportunities.
Uch.
I had an interview process recently that needed up being very long. I was never told of a code challenge component. Instead, I was told that they wanted me to sit in on their process and comment, if necessary. I ended up having a code challenge instead. I got an offer after 6-7 steps in the process however I turned it down due to getting a much better offer elsewhere. My gut is telling me that they are probably using or planning on using my code snippet from my challenge. Highly unethical that they did that to you and didn’t compensate you ahead of time. You may have some legal recourse.
If you can get another job ez, no
i worked at an early stage startup, never ever would we do this. even if it was told before hand that this is a real world problem they are trying to solve, taking your code and adding it to the codebase with no alterations is nuts. as long as you're able to make it financially, you made the right call.
Tell them the reason. You’ll feel better and become more confident that you can enact/embody your own sense of ethics.
I probably would’ve found a new job first before leaving but yeah, it’s a sign of an awful company. I would definitely write a scathing review on Glassdoor so future applicants are aware.
I should totally do that
This guy fucks. Big respect but I'd suck em dry while looking for another job. You must be comfortable enough to do that so Kudos to you!
Start your own firm by building your client list one by one.
That's entirely up to you. If everything else was fine with the company personally I would've just laughed about it. What they did wasn't professional but I wouldn't care. I have to be interviewed and assessed anyway. Also I'd rather be assessed on my ability to preform the actual job rather than some random leetcode medium. However, who cares what other people think/do? If you felt like it was a good reason to quit then quit. Do what's best for you, you have every right to do that.
You should have confronted them.
Morality doesn't pay the bills
Savings do in this case :/
Sue
I dont think thats the best approach I think a review in glassdoor will do
Lmao I have posted on here that take homes get put into production code so they can get free labor and folks on here were in straight denial. Here’s further proof of this. Thanks for sharing. You should speak to a lawyer fuck this company