Ask HN: Can "Pull Request to Get Hired" Replace Traditional Tech Hiring?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44544837

by jerawaj740 • 1 year ago

3 7 1 year ago

news.ycombinator.com

I’ve been thinking: what if hiring was as simple as submitting a pull request?

Instead of resumes and endless interviews, candidates could fork a company’s repo (or a prepared test repo), fix a bug or add a small feature, and get hired based on real contribution.

Has anyone tried this? What are the challenges, and would companies actually hire this way? Curious to hear thoughts from both founders and engineers

leakycap2• 1 year ago

You communicate a lot to potential hires about your company in the way you recruit. I would opt myself out of the hiring pool if I noticed a company had a practice like this.

"Do some free work for us and we'll think about if we want to pay you for more" is a dystopian way of hiring that expects the job market to provide a perfect fit with no investment by the company.

I would wage salary suffers somewhere that is focusing on this type of recruitment, because it's focusing on the non-growth side of the problem. Focus your energy where you can build yourself and others up to find success, especially in hiring.

rvz• 1 year ago

I would opt myself out of the hiring pool if I noticed a company had a practice like this.

You might as also opt out of any company telling you to do a take-home challenge or even a mindless leetcode puzzle that you have to solve for free as a wasted proof of work to the employer to hire you for.

Pull request + bounties are much better since you get paid when you solve the issue and comma.ai does this where regular contributors are easily identified, paid and have the chance to be hired.

leakycap2• 1 year ago

You might as also opt out of [...] that you have to solve for free as a wasted proof of work to the employer to hire you for.

Many if not most self-respecting professionals do opt out of this kind of process, and this is why companies who use these hiring techniques struggle with the talent they attract.

The first place to look when you aren't getting an incredible, stand-out candidate or two is "who said no to us because of our first impressions online and during initial contacts?"

Teams who reflect on this and think harder than "let's not pay them to work and see if they can do the job" will attract better applicants.

spooneybarger• 1 year ago

I would never hire someone solely on the basis of a PR.

TheAceOfHearts• 1 year ago

I think comma.ai, George Hotz self-driving company is doing something like that. He has previously posted about hiring contributors. They way they do it is that they offer bounties [0] for fixing bugs or issues of different sizes. They also seem to have design challenges which offer paid rewards as well.

[0] comma.ai/bounties

benoau• 1 year ago

If the job was as simple as submitting pull requests, sure, but there's usually a lot more process and social-overhead that candidates need to fit in with too.

cbracketdash• 1 year ago

Also tinygrad does this https://github.com/tinygrad/tinygrad

Ask HN: Can "Pull Request to Get Hired" Replace Traditional Tech Hiring?

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