Slashdot Mirror
The Risks of Entering Programming Contests
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister warns developers of the hidden risks of entering programming competitions, which are on the rise since NetFlix awarded $1 million to BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos in 2009. 'Web and software companies offer prizes for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is simply to raise awareness, interest, and participation in a given software platform or service,' McAllister writes. But the practice of offering and entering software prizes is not without concerns. Privacy implications, class-action lawsuits — many of the prizes leave participants vulnerable to prosecution. Worse is the possibility of handing hard work over to a company without reward. 'Contests like the Netflix Prize are sponsored by commercial entities that stand to profit from the innovations produced by the entrants. Those who participate invest valuable time toward winning the prize, but if they fail to meet the deadline (or to produce the leading results) their efforts could go completely unrewarded. Depending on the terms of the contest, however, the sponsor might still be able to make use of the runners-up's innovations — which, of course, would be a whole lot cheaper than hiring developers.'"
GPL your entry.
But aren't these risks, for the most part, kind of obvious? It's sort of like saying your employer might exploit you for free labor from your unpaid internship. Duh!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
what about pre / in interview code samples or probation period coding?
what stop them from firing you right at the end of the probation period and getting free work.
Nothing as your contract usually includes a clause about them owning copyright to the work you create while employed by them.
Totally sick of their popup/popunder ads.
"...prizes leave participants vulnerable to prosecution." I don't see any in the article.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Those who participate invest valuable time toward winning the prize, but if they fail to meet the deadline (or to produce the leading results) their efforts could go completely unrewarded.
Boohoo? Why should you be rewarded if you can't even meet the deadlines of the contest or producing subpar results compared to others?
Are there people who work, for free, in a "probation period", where those people are not interns?
Seriously... If any job I was applying for said "Well, Mr Polydwarf, we like you and all.. but we're going to need you to sit at a desk and pound some code out, just to see if we *really* like you.. Oh yeah, no paycheck, either. But, you do get to bask in the glow of your monitor and congratulate yourself on a job well done."
Benefits are a different story (a lot of places, they won't kick in until some amount of time in, like 90 days)... But paycheck?
If the runners-up are not selected, it isn't a complete loss as they had a valuable programming experience.
I think it's only fair to point out that the terms of the netflix contest (which I participated in and got a lot out of) are such that you own everything you produce. I think you may have to licence it to netflix if you win and take the $million, but if so it is non-exclusive.
Let's not make a big corporate drama over everything. Every programmer that enters a contest knows (or should know) that his work may go unrewarded AND into the hands of the contest arrangement panel. If the programmer has enough free time to make something really great for a contest, then he's already a big name or capable of making lots of money and great projects, so somebody making use of his contest entry should be but a little blip on his radar; if his contest entry was that great then he surely can go big time.
These types of risks aren't inherent in devoting time merely to a contest, they're everywhere. You're at risk of unveiling your ideas at soon as you sit down for the interview and answer the question, "so why should we hire you?". You may have a great idea, spill the beans, and then not get the job only to see the company adopt your idea. Similarly, whose to say that when you implement a new idea in a company that they don't fire you and hire someone else once the system is implanted. While these are unlikely events they're similar types of risks and they're everywhere.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
I'm sorry.
I don't care how valid his opinions are. "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister" should know better than to stretch his thoughts across two pages. Especially when 85% of those pages are advertisements. I'm going to actively avoid any more of his/infoworld's content on Slashdot (or elsewhere).
Shame on you.
So you're tellin me that 15 years ago when I edited my colleague's autoexec.bat file into a loop that repeated "I AM A GIANT CAWK MAGNET" endlessly... I was at risk of prosecution?! Damn, barely made it!
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I've never seen a netflix popup/under. perhaps you didn't install enough plugins to block ads and garbage. it's useful for more than netflix, like the million of "your computer may be infected" ads.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I can't believe either of those is a serious problem:
Interview coding: do they really use you to solve a real problem they are having? And you are successful in understanding their problem domain in an hour, and providing a useful solution? Seriously? They'd have been run into the ground by more efficient competitors.
Probation period? Who signs on to a job like that?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Once, in a Microsoft interview, I was asked to write a memory allocator. I always assumed that after I left, the conversation went like:
"Great, copy this down. Tell the next guy to write us a sound driver."
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
The alternative to a competition is what, a request for tender, a bunch of responses from big corporations. At least the competition gives me as an individual a reasonable way to compete.
Nullius in verba
Where the hell did you work with no benefits for 90 days? I've never seen it go longer than 2 weeks (generally because the health insurance processed forms every 2 weeks).
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Once, in a Microsoft interview, I was asked to write a memory allocator. I always assumed that after I left, the conversation went like:
"Great, copy this down.
You might think that, but let's face it, memory management in Windows hasn't visibly improved in decades*. Any number of interview candidate submissions could have helped, and yet it hasn't.
*I kid. I'm not a Windows fanboi, but at least Win 7 x64 isn't thrashing all the damn time on my system at home. It's almost Linux-grade!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Anonymous Coward warns developers of the hidden risks of submitting Slashdot comments... Social media websites allow comments for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is simply to raise awareness, interest, and participation in a given software platform or service,' anon writes. But the practice of allowing comments is not without concerns. Privacy implications, class-action lawsuits — many of the comments leave participants vulnerable to prosecution. Worse is the possibility of handing hard work over to a company without reward. 'Contests like the commenting on Slashdot are sponsored by commercial entities that stand to profit from the innovations produced by the entrants. Those who participate invest valuable time toward winning the funny or insightful mods, but if they fail to meet the deadline (or to produce the leading results) their efforts could go completely unrewarded. Depending on the terms of the contest, however, the sponsor might still be able to make use of the runners-up's innovations — which, of course, would be a whole lot cheaper than hiring professional commentators.
This is nothing new. Creative companies have been doing this for years during hiring or with competitions. Since big business decided to screw me in the ass I refuse to use anything resembling a store card which is just another exercise in the shop making free money from me, and never take part in any marketing surveys of any form. If someone wants to know what I know they can stop lying and/or pay me consultancy rates.
Read it up.
Obviously if you enter a competition and don't win you spend effort entering for no reward. I wouldn't think it would be possible too drool let alone develop software without knowing that.
That the prize runner benefits from non-winning entries (if the terms and conditions are as such, and you know them before you enter) is also obvious. That's part of the reason for running one, you might award your million dollar prize for the best piece of crap in a field of garbage and would have been better of hiring programmers (ignoring the promotion beneifits of a competition). Or you might get more and better software than you could have got via hiring for the same cost.
Attending a job interview, writing a cover letter, tweaking the CV to highlight relevant experience, etc, those all require effort or time - and yet they don't have to offer me the job (or offer me the pay/benefits I want). Oh noes... there's risk...
You might think that, but let's face it, memory management in Windows hasn't visibly improved in decades*. Any number of interview candidate submissions could have helped, and yet it hasn't.
Their problem is they weren't sure which one was best; so they used them all, and set up a round-robin system to select which manager to use for which process instance.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Well, I have helped solve real world problems in an interview. Naturally they offered me the job. If you do know that much more about the domain than the people hiring you they'd be fools not to take you on.
No, this is Fark. The 'risks' they mentioned are obvious and belong to almost all contests.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I am reminded of http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/07/22/2011259/Why-Designers-Hate-Crowdsourcing
What sort of idiot would take a job with an unpaid probation period???
Read the conditions and rules of the contest to see if you are giving the contest holders your code regardless of whether you win or not.
The more people afraid to enter the contest, the more likely each entrant is to win. You're just trying to narrow the competition.
Clever girl.
>Probation period? Who signs on to a job like that?
Almost everybody at almost every level. Even when the opportunity has long-term prospects, the offer is usually on a contract basis where the employer defers the option to hire to a benefits-eligible position. This is pretty standard in programming jobs nowadays.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
>Where the hell did you work with no benefits for 90 days?
There are a *lot* of people working on 1099 versus W-2 terms. Many people choose this route, for all kinds of reasons. Many jobs are offered only on those terms.
I've been able to hire contractors where a regular employee hire would have been absolutely impossible, often because the complications of adding a regular employee far outweigh paying a higher price to a contractor. This isn't uncommon at all in our industry.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
what stop them from firing you right at the end of the probation period and getting free work.
Usually the main problem is that the code in question needs further work. It is very rare that developers are worth the time it takes to train them for the first 6 months. When you audit code written by people on their trial period before offering them a full time post you are usually just ensuring that it does not contain any glaring great screw ups.
The project you give them will usually be very self contained but with a few external things they need to check in order to see how they deal with it. The main reason for this is that at the end of the day you have to audit it so the candidate is fresh in everyone's mind when the final decision is being made. In my experience you will want to give a potential candidate a decision very quickly after his evaluation day. If they were rubbish they probably did not get that far so you do not wan them to get another offer while you make up your mind. If you have given them a project that involved working on more than 5 or 6 files you have to go through every last line that is different and check it before the code is checked in and that can be a right pain in the arse.
Much better is giving them a dummy project that is going nowhere but builds on a simple area of your existing system. This way they have to look a the existing code and plan their approach but you get an easy audit at 5:30 when they leave.
I am also fond of giving them a project they have very little chance of completing in the time allotted in order to see how they cope with pressure. Obviously you do not count the fact they did not finish it against them but seeing how they cope with an unrealistic deadline is far more valuable than the code the produce ever could have been.
The best employee I have ever had the pleasure to work with came to do a trial day on a day which turned out to be a fallback beta release day to a client. Since the program was supposed to have been handed across to the clients test team 2 days earlier but they rushed in some last minute changes we had no choice but to release on that day. We also knew he was good from his interview so we did not want the candidate to get another offer if we mucked him about cancelling with less than a weeks notice. Then our technical lead got sick on the day of the release.
We went ahead and he found several bugs before the clients testing team. He also showed he was very professional and coped with a very stressful day very well even though he was a recent graduate with no experience on a development team. The end result was him getting dragged to the pub immediately after the day and him being accepted as part of the development team by his co-workers long before management had given him a firm offer (which of course they did, and he accepted).
While I would never aim to make a potential employees first day as much of a disaster as that I do think you can give people a basic stress test without letting them know the work they are doing is actually a bit of a dead end that does not matter as much as it could. Unfortunately jobs that pay well are quite often a little stressful at times and it pays to see how people cope with this before you hire them. This can also help the employee since someone who copes well is going to get a better starting offer than someone who can do the job well but looks like they will require more managerial input when they are in post.
I dont read
The fear of libertarianism is the terror that the mediocre feel at the possibility of being judged on their merits.
+1 insightful. Of course, after the invisible hand has snuffed out the bottom 50%, there's always another bottom 50%. Only one person can be the winner.
I have never seen a job like that. And i've taken 4 interviews this year.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Tell the next guy to write us a sound driver.
Sound in Windows hasn't been a problem for at least fifteen years. Can the same be said for Linux?
Duh!
Uhh...every job I've had as long as I can remember? (USA BTW) Health insurance usually kicks in 30 days or so after hiring, but then they usually have pre-existing conditions clauses for an additional 90 days or 6 months (an abomination IMO, because everyone has pre-existing conditions!) Lots of places you can't use your PTO (paid time off) for 90 days, and then of course you have to earn those hours first by working a set amount of hours.
And I'm not talking as a contractor, I'm talking straight-up regular salaried work.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/den/1625610355.html
REally...
tell that to the tons of guys that fight with it daily on the Pro recording boards.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A desperate for work idiot.
My non-profit has run a contest for the past three years. Maybe I've not been doing things the "right" way but it's only after an entry has actually won a prize that the developer assigns any rights to my organization. If they don't win then I get nothing. If they do win they always have the option of not assigning the rights (and concomitantly not receiving a cash prize!).
I'm not sure why somebody would willingly assign away their rights just for a chance to win and frankly I question the value of what a non-winning developer is receiving in exchange for the rights assignment. A "chance" doesn't seem like it would be adequate consideration.
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
Wow, those risky contests sound like just another at work, whether for yourself, or your employer. Either one could fail, and receive nothing.
Maybe McAllister forgot about the whole "dot com" "nEW eCONOMY" (stylized for Web 2.0 chicness) market crashing.
Two comments:
1. You're vulnerable to being sued simply for looking at someone cross-eyed. Anecdotes notwithstanding, you're not particularly more vulnerable just because you entered a contest.
2. Using your invention without paying you is an unreasonable fear. They may not offer you the 50% stake in the company that you think your invention deserves, but unless you're antisocial, in some other way unreasonable or too disinterested to introduce yourself to the managers of the relevant team, the fact that they want to employ your invention within their product is generally a good enough reason to offer you employment. If you can come up with an execute one good idea, you can do it again. If you can do it twice you can do it 10 times. And if you can keep coming up with an executing good ideas then you're worth far more as an employee than your single contest idea was alone.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I've seen it at a few places, but never worked for large corporations. There was a job secured by a headhunter, where you weren't technically an employee of the company until 90 days had passed (although you did get paid). Then there is my current employer, who didn't provide health insurance for 90 days. I don't think I've ever had a job that gave out Health Insurance without a 90 day period.
Just because a contest is held doesn't mean it will complete.
The last IOCCC contest results have been highly anticipated for years now.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
The profit motive matters. If an employer asks me to write code to prove I can, then that is one thing. If that employer then uses the code to make millions of dollars, doesn't give me a penny for it, and won't even hire me, then I would be angry.
1) People in these contests often have a day job - the "talent" is not their line of work.
2) None of those shows in and of themselves devaluate the market. Dancing and singing on a show does not necessarily produce something direct that lessens the need for employing dancers or singers. "Talent" contests benefit from the fact that people enjoy watching a competition...as evidenced by "American Idol", those on the show need not even have any talent.
So while the motives of people going on these "Talent" shows and those entering contests may be the same, the results are vastly different. I point you to 99designs.com and the resulting slashdot article on graphic designers and their perceived worth. Welcome to the crowd of the expendables.
Doctors and Lawyers have learned to value the worth of their time. Why haven't developers? They are either a) desperate, b) have no sense of business, c) distracted by fun shiny problem.
this is why the us govt created the sbir program. back in the day when the govt contracted a software developer(s) they choose the best and most capable of performing the task. however once it was done so was the support and further advancement. essentially they soon had unsupportable outdated pieces of software that were useless. worse is that they spent millions if not billions on training and incorporating this now useless piece of technology into their work force. to me its just a setup for shoddy software, look at ms, i bet if they could increased their employee retention they would start making alot better software, as its created by a few people not hundreds of new heads and managers throwing in their 2 cents and different coding styles every 2 years.
not to mention its just scary to think instead of being a developer with some job security, i just have to be some freelancer looking for a 2 week position that i may or may not be compensated for. i had a netflix prize group at my university, and they got me, a professor and 3 other students doing highly skilled work for them, at the total cost of $0.00.
Because it is a 64-bit OS!!
One may try to explain to the morons out there that running 32-bit OS on 2G+ RAM machine is *stupid* due to problems with *address space* (not RAM, address space), yet, they don't listen and try to convince others that 32-bit is fine until you have more than 4G ram!! Then they sit there bitching that Microsoft can't write a memory manager wile watching their disk thrashing mad with 2.5G free on their 4G machine.
Running 64-bit fixes thrashing problems just as IPv6 fixes routing madness that is the internet today. But again, most morons will say "WTF? I don't need more than 1 IPv4 address for my computer!". These are the people that just don't get IT.
you would be able to list on the stock market, raise capital to hire programmers etc., produce a product, distribute it and get rich competing equally with everyone else. But in the real world of the communist religion of political correctness, you have the same right as the rich to give a lawyer a quarter million dollars to get permission to do these things. So the corporations don't have to compete with you, can steal from you and enslave you because your government legislated it that way.
>I have never seen a job like that.
You've never seen "contract to hire", looking for software jobs. Ok. It's still very common practice.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Good, tell me how to change the volume of the Microsoft GS wavetable synth independently of the wave output in Windows 7. It works properly in XP.
Do the contract to hire jobs really not pay you in most cases? I took one once, and got paid in advance like you usually do for contracting.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The context has the probation period being 'for free'.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I would if the job were sufficiently interesting and I had previously won the lottery.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Probationary periods are common in governmental jobs. Typically you'll have a year, at the end of which you can be retained or let go depending on how well you did.
>Do the contract to hire jobs really not pay you in most cases?
I didn't say that! Actually the contract period typically pays more, and you usually take a hit when you go from contract to FTE.
I don't know where you got the idea that the contract (or probation) period was unpaid. On the contrary, 1099 status can be quite lucrative, especially if you don't have to (choose not to) buy insurance, or know how to benefit from doing your own tax withholding (e.g., instead of withholding, make a safe investment and profit to offset your taxes).
Who said anything about not getting paid?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The original post:
It was the premise of the great, great, great, great, great grand parent to which I originally replied, and which you challenged:
"what stop them from firing you right at the end of the probation period and getting free work."
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
And you can go a WHOLE YEAR without getting paid? That is crazy! Who on earth can take that risk!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Ehh ... this wasn't obvious? Why do you think they hold a competition? Because it's cheaper than funding the effort directly.
I don't see the problem here. This is known by the contestants going in. Of course the expected return on your time is better if you get a job - that's not the point of entering a contest like this.
I'm a moron: please explain how running 64bit on a computer with 4G of ram will fix thrashing.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
Once I submitted a solution with source code to a travel software company that posts "application puzzles". Got an interview, but then never heard back from them. Not even a form letter email of "at this time, there does not appear to be a match" variety.
I've since wondered whether they learned anything from my solution.
People compete because they like to win. Many of the /. illuminati compete in various code contests and give away their genius for no better reason than it's an outlet they don't get in their regular work. Some few aren't just good: they're world-class. Their entries create new definitions of software capability. Their contest winning entries are ACM Communications worthy.They're generally gainfully employed, or better yet - fully actualized and not dependant on someone else to offer them work. They're not concerned about giving up the benefit of some of their genius because it's a fountain that spews from their psyche that they could not stop if they wanted it to. They have an embarassment of creative riches: they cannot use all that they have each day, or even a good fraction. They need this outlet because the demands of life don't scratch their creative, inventive itch.
If the ideas you have to solve some contest may be your sole epiphany, TFA might be a concern. For some of us, that "Oh, my" moment happens several times during breakfast. The thing is, most of the folks who have to worry about such things are not commenting in this thread.
If you're an MBA type with no creative or technical skills, this could possibly be a net you could cast to catch some IP. Going into it though you have to accept the risk: everybody you're dealing with is smarter than you. You have to rely on the extent that they're so brilliant they don't care what you might do with their work. If they care, you're hosed.
Dr. Bart Kosko, a EE Professor at USC, got his first postgraduate job at SAIC. They hired him for a week, took all of the IP he'd developed in his many years as a doctoral student, and fired him. He has since went on to get his law degree and teaches all of his grad students how to avoid similar things happening to them.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_Kosko - did a lot of interesting work in Fuzzy Logic)
In Soviet Russia contest risks you!
Most of the responses above fail to realize that large companies are using competitions at TopCoder and ODesk to get work done, and are reviewing submissions from all candidates, even those who do not win. Those companies DO have internal development shops to integrate the code (or will dispatch integration as another "competition"), and are well aware that the licenses for the competition explicitly give them ownership of all submissions, even the losers.
I write this as an AC because I work at a company that is banking on the cost savings of this new business model.
I have had interview programming on smaller problems to gauge my abilities. That is a given and a standard practice.
I have never seen nor heard of a 90 day trial as a programmer with no pay. Where is this? I have been programming a long time and have always been paid from the minute I walk in the door. Now I have seen probationary periods where you will have to meet with your manager to make sure you are up to snuff. You are still paid in those cases though. That sounds kind of scummy. Must be overseas or something...?
I didn't read the "probation period" as some kind of unpaid audition. Probation period to me means the person who hired you gets an exit clause so that letting you go is uncomplicated if you don't work out for them. (It can and does get very complicated otherwise.)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.