Is it reasonable to ask a potential employer for samples of their code and/or employee contact information, to determine if I want to work there?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I'm currently looking for a new job as a developer. There are two things that companies usually require that bother me a lot: long programming assignments and reference checks. There are plenty of questions about both things in this site.

There are other things that bother me even more: after doing such a process, finding out that the code or system I'm going to be working with is a disaster, or the company itself is.

So I've started trying, with no success (and no surprise) at all, asking the companies in return:

1. Some code of their own. I'm aware it's confidential, but just any, any small piece of code they're usually working with.
2. Former and/or current employees contact information, so that I can ask "hey, did/do you enjoy working there?" Also confidential, but just the same as the contact information they require from my references. I can read reviews on Glassdoor, but I don't put much trust on that.

One of the companies said that what I'm asking (2-3 people's contact information, they'd asked for 6) is unreasonable. Is it? I acknowledge they have the right to do all they consider necessary to get the best people on board. Can't I do the same?

manpreet 2 years ago

There are some already good answers here, but to add my own thought. Has it occurred to you that their assessment of you is your opportunity to assess them?

Let me give you two different examples all based off real experiences I've had:

1. I spent 15+ hours working at home on a programming assignment for a company, their response came back via a recruiter but basically fell into the category "you didn't have to use X for that" and "you didn't need to do that". No discussion, no phone call.
2. A second company brought me in for an interview and gave me a list of instructions on a piece of paper and a laptop. It was a very simply TDD programming challenge. The two interviewers sat in the room with me an chatted as I completed the challenge, we discussed the pros and cons of NUnit over MSTest and how you can overcome the disadvantage of poor test naming by using the NUnit Name property on the attribute.

Guess which company I wanted to work for?

While you're in an interview it's VERY important to impress the interviewers, but look for clues. Listen to their feedback on these challenges, if it's collaborative and you have a friendly chat then that's how they company operates. If it's a "not good enough" then you probably don't fit into their mold.

They WANT you to be the candidate (believe me, they've already seen enough bad ones). But company's often forget that you want them to be the company. Look for clues about what the company is like from the interview process itself!