Comment by shakna | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shakna | Hacker News Reader

It depends.

I've dealt with a few clients like this. Most wouldn't say anything till I signed an NDA, usually the first day of working on the project. However, with some, if I came out and said I wasn't comfortable until I knew more, and was willing to sign an NDA, they'd agree, I'd sign, and get the whole spiel.

Here comes the bite: Some would respond to the request by showing me the door.

Information is paramount in business, and some people are simply unwilling to risk letting anything leak till they're ready.

I absolutely agree that faith in a project determines how much effort beyond the norm I put in. [0] However, sometimes you'll just get a job that needs the professional treatment, because it will fail no matter how well you do: but its still a paycheck, and you still have a contract.

If they end up unwilling to let you know more, then try and judge the product on its caretakers, the people you meet. It might be worth the risk of a terrible tedious failure. [1]

[0] On a bad project, I work my hours. On something I believe in, I've been found sketching relationship trees at 4AM because I had an idea.

[1] The last project I had was terrible. The inception idea was fantastic. It got gutted twice over whilst I was still building it. I went from senior developer, to junior. I lost creative input. So, I was pissed off, exhausted with politics, and demoralised. However, I still got the project in on time, to specification, and got a nice paycheck.

Edit: Why I did [1].

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. We all have to eat.

I got the impression from them that they wanted more than 40 hrs a week from me, almost to the point of wanting to own me. One of the managers had a problem with me continuing to support my own apps after accepting the job.

For me, that's a pretty steep job requirement. You'd have to really convince me that what you're doing matters and that lives are literally at stake if I don't come join your company. Otherwise you're just being selfish in my view.

I told them I can't accept the job unless they give me more details, and you're right, there's a good chance they will show me the door.

But then I'm pretty sure that's a business I wouldn't want to work for anyway.

On the bright side, they might give you some insight, and it might be a great product.

In the end though, its not worth risking your humanity over. If they show you the door, it's probably a bullet dodged.

I didn't start in software development: I was in forensics. But, though I loved the work, I didn't love what I found. I was losing faith in people, so I moved away to what had been only an interest area. You don't want to get caught up by a company that eats you alive.

There's not really a bad outcome here, the worst case is you get something boring on your plate.

Though, anecdotally, just about every contract I've had wanted exclusivity, to ensure I didn't steal their ideas, or borrow any code I wrote on their dime. It was annoying, but I mostly dealt with it by: a. Putting my projects on a temporary hold, or b. Getting them to acknowledge I already had support contracts for my projects, and wouldn't they want support from me, too? (I usually have 6 months support in my agreements, after that... Depends how much I like the client.)

But again, it isn't really something to sweat over, but it does seem to be getting more common.

Interesting. This wasn't really sold to me as a contract but rather as a full-time employment situation. I think I might be willing to make that sort of compromise if I knew I had a chance to decompress after the six months are over and I'm on to the next thing.

And yeah, part-time software dev jobs seem to be increasingly rare these days. People either want your soul or they don't want anything to do with you. I would be totally happy working half as many hours at the same hourly rate with lower living expenses than working full-time or overtime with a high salary. We all have different priorities. I need my tinkering time.

Yup, definite red flags.

How are you supposed to evaluate if it's worth your time if you don't know what you'll be working on ?

Had a similar interview once - the guy just wouldn't give me any specific info. Since I didn't know what the role was and I have very wide experience I couldn't target myself, in the end the feedback was that I was too vague !?

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