State of the Market

[dsc]

My experience with start-ups is that they're generally looking for the "will work for food" brigade (i.e. young pups with enthusiasm to burn and who are still living with mum and dad.)

Working in a dynamic team, company bbqs, free-fruit Thursdays and a pool table in the lunch room should be enough to make you want to work for £25k a year, what's the matter with you.

[wattaj]

Working in a dynamic team, company bbqs, free-fruit Thursdays and a pool table in the lunch room should be enough to make you want to work for £25k a year, what's the matter with you.

I have a £55k waistline.

[perplexed]

I interviewed with a place where the first stage was one of those online platforms that use a hosted IDE to write the code.

3 coding problems which needed an implementation & unit tests. You could choose language. First was some basic string manipulation, second was a tree traversal problem, and the third I just wrote in the editor "not doing this as I've spent a full evening doing the other 2". You get no starter code and have to write everything from scratch.

I obviously passed as I got a second face to face interview, which the pimp said would not be technical as I already did that part. It was with 2 other coders.

First question - "so why are you a contractor" - sigh

Second - "Why did you choose to do the assessment in C# when this is a frontend JavaScript role"
(Genuine answer was I thought it was the best tool for the questions)

In between all the main questions, one of the coders kept jumping in and asking me really left field questions about how the C# compiler works, Why would you do X instead of Y.

Third - *brings up my code on screen* "lets walk through your code and see what you would do differently"

I thought I had batted all their questions back at them pretty well, but I got to this point where my gut was already saying that this place was going to be a nightmare to work with.

When they asked "do you have any questions" I spent about 15/20 minutes saying what I liked and what I didn't like about their process - all in a positive, constructive way, no shade at all.

I didn't hear anything back, and didn't get any form of response from them.

Choose any language? Cool, I'll use pseudo code. What is the point of string manipulation, tree traversal... how often do you write code explicitly doing that? If people are going to insist on those tulipty tests, at least use real world examples close to the work you'd be engaged to perform.

[_V_]

I have a £55k waistline.

£25K is the new £55K.

Everyone needs to be able to live the same on half the pay, with rising costs.

[GigiBronz]

£25K is the new £55K.

Everyone needs to be able to live the same on half the pay, with rising costs.

They'll have to take up loans, rack-up credit card debt.
Population drowning in debt is good for companies - shorter leash, good for banks - borrowing at negative, giving out at two digits, not good for you.

Bulls Make Money, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered

[sira]

An agency just arranged an interview for me with a tier 1 financial services firm. She said the firm is doing FTC's only, but she said she can make the contract outside ir35 if I "keep quiet" about the arrangement. I understand the end-client makes the determination regarding ir35, so what is this agency intending to do in practical terms? Havent been in such a predicament before..

[PCTNN]

Working in a dynamic team, company bbqs, free-fruit Thursdays and a pool table in the lunch room should be enough to make you want to work for £25k a year, what's the matter with you.

Did a short permie stint at a software house that despite being bought by this giant american company and having thousands of employees, still had a proud start up mentality. Room with playstation, pool table and ping pong, free coffees, sodas and fruit everyday. Free lunch twice a week with so much food everybody would bring tupperwares and take home 2 days worth of leftovers. It was paradise.

I left because the product was boring as hell and my manager would micromanage the sh1t out of everyone, but gained more than 1 stone in the 6 months I was there

[PCTNN]

An agency just arranged an interview for me with a tier 1 financial services firm. She said the firm is doing FTC's only, but she said she can make the contract outside ir35 if I "keep quiet" about the arrangement. I understand the end-client makes the determination regarding ir35, so what is this agency intending to do in practical terms? Havent been in such a predicament before..

The agent doesn't know what they're talking about?

[sira]

The agent doesn't know what they're talking about?

Hmm. Sounds like they want to fob off the end-client and just do an outside IR35 contract with me (as the regulation isnt in play yet) and ask me to keep it hush...

[GigiBronz]

Hmm. Sounds like they want to fob off the end-client and just do an outside IR35 contract with me (as the regulation isnt in play yet) and ask me to keep it hush...

Numbers might not play out, figures for FTC are quite different than any other type of contract. If you are fine with the permanent equivalent but spread out during the year... go for it. I really doubt it that they'd stump the different themselves.

You do carry the liability for the determination, unless you have it in written somewhere. (which I doubt it will come)