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Comment by analognoise | Hacker News Reader

I talked with Rivian recently. 100% got the impression they're trying to pump candidates for relevant IP from their previous employers.

"Put together a detailed presentation on something you worked on. The more detailed the better - code, schematics, block diagrams".

Um, excuse me? Did you just ask for IP from my previous employer, directly?

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Tesla filed a lawsuit for precisely this questionable practice.

“According to the lawsuit Tesla claims, Jesica Siron took proprietary information regarding manufacturing project management, controls specification for manufacturing equipment, specifications for manufacturing equipment...”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21335638/tesla-rivian-law...

Oh wow, this absolutely tracks with the impression I got.

Disgusting.

I think a lot of companies will allow engineers to come up with their own questions for candidates without much oversight. This can lead to the above scenario where an engineering interviewer thinks this could be a good way to check if an engineer is a key contributor or a low performer to their current role. However, it is important that interviewers are trained to ask questions like this in general rather than specific terms to avoid this appearance. I personally doubt that many companies use interviews to get IP from previous employers.

Who within an organization sanctions this kind of thing? I recently was in a such a situation too with another R&D AV organization. In light of comments like this, its becoming increasingly clear that they just wanted the IP

They could be checking to see whether you'd be likely to disclose Rivian IP in the future.

Seems like a, "Sorry, can't do that. I honor my contracts." would suffice. If the interviewer pushed again for proprietary information, their intent would be clear.

No. I was there, it wasn't N dimensional chess.

That's what I'm saying - I said "I can't do that" and their demeanor changed totally and obviously. It was super obvious they were lining up people to do deep presentations on their previous employers IP.

That is very unfortunate to hear.

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