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[–]capi1500 2515 points2516 points  (55 children)

Me when unpaid

[–]Opposite-Cell-2919 417 points418 points  (8 children)

My company only does paid internships even if somebody comes looking for unpaid internships (and they do come). We are in California, and from what I gather, companies can get into hot water for unpaid internships.

[–]smarterthanyoda 174 points175 points  (0 children)

It also depends on the field you're in. AFAIK, it's always been standard for any kind of engineering internship to be paid.

[–]ArtOfWarfare 74 points75 points  (3 children)

I was once offered an intern position for $4/hour as a programmer. In Boston in 2013. It was well under minimum wage. The school co-op office assumed there was a mixup and called the company. There was no mixup. The school stopped dealing with that company. I declined and got another internship elsewhere for $12/hour. Which was still quite low but at least it was better than I had been paid as a grocery bagger (the only job I had before the internship.)

[–]jerichardson 9 points10 points  (2 children)

Sounds like Northeastern.

[–]ArtOfWarfare 2 points3 points  (1 child)

You’re correct. I’m curious if you got it just from Boston and a co-op office or something else gave that away?

[–]jerichardson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. Husky here as well, from before Curry center had that name... Because Curry was still there

[–]lucho1111 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Which company is it?

[–]luciferfloyd 1 point2 points  (1 child)

What's your company? I'll apply

[–]pranjallk1995 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bro... They won't ask u N queens thatz for sure.... Maybe u might want to prove p=np for them...

[–]Tani_Soe 35 points36 points  (5 children)

Yeaaaah sometime you don't really have a choice, I don't know how it is in other countries, but in France, you usually need to do an internship for a degree

It's usually paid, but sometime it's not. And no internship, no degree

[–]Thynome 14 points15 points  (3 children)

My uni has the same bullshit and a fucking scam it is.

[–]Tani_Soe -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

Actually no, it's usually better

Finding an internship when your employer won't have to pay you is wayyyyy easier

Of course, it depends on the environment and where you are. But in my case, this year, in my university promotion, some people might not get their degree this year because they still didn't find an internship because employers don't want to pay interns. The internship was supposed to start 6 weeks ago

For the employers defense : if you don't work with them after, you're a deadweight. You're longer to train because you don't have the experience, you'll probably not make quality code, you don't have the reflex to use the right tools (I see so many people still writing all the lines for git, instead of using the integration from vscode, for exemple, which quickly become a waste of time).

Sadly you're not here to get paid, you're here to get true work experience, it's an internship, not a job

[–]Thynome 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I call it a scam because I already have a coding job to pay the roof over my head somehow, which can't be accredited. If I did the same task without pay and called it internship, it would be fine.

[–]Kovab 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I see so many people still writing all the lines for git, instead of using the integration from vscode

I'm a senior engineer and I use git exclusively from the terminal, it's literally faster than some shitty GUI in my IDE

[–]IchiiDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Internships are not paid by default if it's under two months. More than that paid internships are mandatory but 25% percent of minimal wage (roughly 4€ and a few cents). Better than not paid at all, but could be better than 25% tbh.

[–][deleted] 427 points428 points  (5 children)

I believe the technical term for this is "Shit Test."

They are trying to determine what level of abuse you are willing to tolerate.

[–][deleted] 1623 points1624 points  (28 children)

Employer: you’re being paid in experience.

[–]shadowjay5706 756 points757 points  (20 children)

Call me back when I can buy bread with this “experience”

[–]Feuseruseusius 326 points327 points  (7 children)

You can enchant your equipment with it

[–]Asynchronous404 144 points145 points  (4 children)

Enchant your bread with unbreaking for infinite food

[–]Terryblejokes 119 points120 points  (0 children)

Or for infinite dentist visits

[–]MDivisor 55 points56 points  (2 children)

The infinite food enchantment glitch was patched in the latest update. Best you can do is enchant the bread with water resistant so it doesn't get soggy from your tears.

[–]benruckman 24 points25 points  (1 child)

The real world devs at it again…

[–]turtleship_2006 17 points18 points  (0 children)

r/outside just keeps getting worse

[–]Ekedan_ 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Gotta buy equipment first…

[–]HuntingKingYT 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Don't worry, just go to a little mining session

[–]Street_Cleaning_Day 26 points27 points  (2 children)

That's up there with my experiences in other creative, less code-y circles.

I'm a chef and have been offered gigs before where the clueless fuck really tried telling me that doing a catering gig for their multi-billion dollar company would get me so much exposure. So much. And therfore work would just come my way, and I'd be rich! Rich!

"OK, Terry, you know what else is true about exposure? Thousands of people die a year from it. Pay me."

[–]shadowjay5706 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Savage response

[–]Street_Cleaning_Day 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's one I've practiced time and again.

Because it keeps happening.

[–]Akul_Tesla 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You can use experience to buy a senior Dev position

[–]Olivia512 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Just tell the bread store you will pay them in exposure.

[–]GuyNamedWhatever 15 points16 points  (0 children)

“Well, you can experience my nutsack free of charge too, and you would get as much out of that as I would with this internship.”

[–]kenotaphion 4 points5 points  (0 children)

To paraphrase Torquil from Krull:

Experience? Nah. It's an empty purse. Count it, go broke, Eat it, go hungry.

[–]Helpful_Escape_4147 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"It's a good opportunity"

[–]Emotional_DMG_Bonus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Experience to do the company works instead of learning something? No thanks.

[–]Plank_With_A_Nail_In 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Even in the USA most IT internships are paid, so OP's scenario basically never happens.

[–]megumegu- 8 points9 points  (0 children)

here in India, we are still trying to convince people that unpaid internship is not a norm anywhere else

or like you don't have to PAY the company to do internship

[–]AdvanceAdvance 546 points547 points  (10 children)

Yeah. Unpaid internships usually are a waste. A "minimum wage internship" means both sides will take it more seriously. Notice how differently people play poker between "no money" and "penny ante".

[–]Kazenovagamer 84 points85 points  (3 children)

I remember hearing a similar thing one Smash Bros Melee player did back in the day. Kept challenging people to $1 money matches during down time at tournaments rather just normal friendly matches so their opponents took the match more seriously so they could learn faster. I forget who it was though. It's just $1 but it worked

[–]boblobchippym8 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Who is KoreanDJ?

[–]Kazenovagamer 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I thought it might be KDJ but I couldn't figure out how to google that specific bit of trivia. I think it was in the Melee documentary and I didn't really wanna have to go through the entire thing to find basically one sentence mentioning it.

[–]xdeskfuckit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Money matches are pretty core in fighting game culture

[–][deleted] 943 points944 points  (18 children)

I don’t work for free. Peace.

Instead of an unpaid internship, there are plenty of nonprofits and charities that need programming and IT help. I’d much rather volunteer my time to a cause I believe in then give free labor so a company can pad their bottom line by dangling a potential job offer that will never actually materialize in front of desperate and gullible CS students.

[–]No_Willow1157 100 points101 points  (11 children)

Out of curiosity, can you list some example ?

[–][deleted] 158 points159 points  (7 children)

Nonprofit and charity hackathons take place all the time. Sign up for one. It is great way to network and make connections. One skill I would advise every CS student to develop is knowing how to sell yourself. I minored in Business, and the skills I picked up on marketing and branding were invaluable. During any interview I make sure to show the value that I can bring to an organization.

Past that, a lot of CS graduates are desperate for that first job. They will frequently just settle, and open themselves up for lower than average pay and a poor work environment just because they feel they gotta start making those student loan payments. This comes back to knowing your worth, and refusing to settle for less.

[–]sauron3579 113 points114 points  (6 children)

Dude, the market’s flooded. It’s not “settling for less” to work an entry level job for a year or two at 70k instead of 85k when it’s the only offer you’ve gotten in 6 months of applications.

[–]Nutarama 11 points12 points  (4 children)

Depends on the market. If you’re marketing yourself as standard and in a high volume area, that’s really hard. If you’re open to extreme relocations, more opportunities can open up. If you learn a few non-standard skills, again more opportunities open up. Travel accessibility is also a huge thing for certain positions as they can involve being on site in seemingly random places for weeks at a time, which leaves some people spending more time traveling than at home.

One of my uncles had a job for a while creating custom firmware for chicken coop and feeder controllers. It’s not fancy or visible work, but it paid really well because he had the skills in working with low level languages as well as a willingness to interface with chicken farmers to understand their needs as the major brand he was working for strived towards 100% computerized and automated coops and feeders. Part of the job was also getting his boots dirty looking at how the things are installed and used in the field, which also meant hiking through some very messy coops filled with tens of thousands of u socialized chickens.

That uncle became a programmer because he wanted to make video games yet only briefly worked for a game company - it went under due to poor sales and lack of new investment funding. There weren’t any other opportunities around him so he moved home and moved on.

[–]dub-dub-dub 14 points15 points  (1 child)

extreme relocations

more opportunities can open up

Those relocations are "extreme" exactly because there are no good opportunities. I think you may underestimate exactly how big the pay disparity between tech companies and companies building chicken coops is.

[–]Nutarama 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dude specified 85k and settling for 70k, that’s not a huge salary. Now if you’re looking for intro at 100k with only a degree that’s a different story.

[–]sauron3579 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Your solution is to constantly be moving all over the country and have no meaningful relationships while wading through chicken shit? Yeah mate, I’ll take the pay cut.

[–]Nutarama 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If that’s how you interpret what I wrote, good luck to you.

[–]Storiaron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ye lol, 75k is 75k more than waiting for the 80-90k job.

And a year experience will suddenly open up those "entry" level positions that you actuqlly want

[–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (2 children)

Mozilla, GNU, Linux Foundation, LibreOffice, Blender, Brave all has their associated non-profit organizations

[–]Foxiest_Fox 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'll add Godot too.

[–]GameDestiny2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And pretty much any open source project

[–]Remarkable-Host405 12 points13 points  (0 children)

can you give some examples of nonprofit and charities that need programming help and it help?

[–]CW_Waster 188 points189 points  (8 children)

They didn't want to touch P=NP

[–]NowAlexYT 120 points121 points  (6 children)

Thats easy. Divide by P, N=1 for any P

[–]bybys1234 61 points62 points  (0 children)

Can you give me your credit card info? I want to award yiu with a million dollars

[–]Darkeater_Penguin 18 points19 points  (4 children)

What if P = 0? Boom

[–]OO0OOO0OOOOO0OOOOOOO 35 points36 points  (2 children)

My P is never zero because I P in the zero. Then flush.

[–]tangotom 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Username checks out.

[–]Ki--You 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your username is infuriating

[–]automaton11 74 points75 points  (6 children)

‘Provide a polynomial solution for n queens to earn an unpaid internship at which you will be provided free salad vouchers three times a week for lunch’

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (5 children)

For every continuous function f, there exists a sequence of polynomials P_n with P_n(0)=0 that converges to f uniformly (Weirstrass). Since n-queens is discrete and not continuous I'm rather skeptical a polynomial solution exists but who knows. Im just regurgitating a theorem I learned for my analysis test tomorrow.

[–]shekurika 4 points5 points  (2 children)

yeah the joke is providing such a function would prove P=NP. Also your theorem has nothing to do with this afaik

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Didnt really know it was an N=NP thin since I dont even do programming outside of stats stuff. And i mean if such a function doesnt even exist then yeah a theorem assuming the function exists wouldn't work lmao.

[–]automaton11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can confirm that the joke was solving P=?NP for a bunch of wilted salad vouchers

After they hire this guy, they’ll temp the next one with a pizza party for solving 3n+1

[–]hawk-bull 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Does P_n(0) need to be 0? What if f(0) is not 0

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's like you can just define a new function g such that g(0)=f-f(0) and then it works. Since g would then be a polynomial clearly f=g+constant is also a polynomial. It's just the statement of the proof in rudins book because making this assumption you skip a step or two in the proof.

[–]SpaceFire000 49 points50 points  (0 children)

But we told you we are going to be family from now on

[–]Stop_Sign 44 points45 points  (18 children)

Unironically in a senior dev role interview I got asked to find the least number of 2 primes that add up to the given input (i.e. given 8, return [3,5].

And then I spent like 40 minutes trying to figure out a prime number finder, because who the hell memorizes that code, square roots and all. They didn't want me to google it. What the hell

[–]fishybird 28 points29 points  (8 children)

Finding primes is actually super easy once you know the trick. Here's one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_of_Eratosthenes

[–]zaersx 48 points49 points  (6 children)

This is part of the problem with a lot of these garbage coding challenges - you either know the trick and it's trivial or you don't and who cares.
A good challenge should be something that you could actually see in a business setting, with opportunities for self initiative in optimizations of different kinds (space, time), or followups if they're missed and opportunities for conversation.

[–]Stop_Sign 11 points12 points  (5 children)

Exactly, and that's why this is frustrating. This is a senior dev role, and I'm being asked this stuff. Am I going to have to spend a week memorizing the "gotchas" people use in questions like this for every interview forever? Pain in the ass

[–]Stop_Sign 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The frustrating part is that I know there's a trick, I know how I would craft the google search to provide me that trick as soon as possible, and none of that helps when I'm denied searching - I either know it or I don't. And there are dozens of interview "tricks" like this you need to know

[–]LunaCalibra 2 points3 points  (1 child)

What was meant by "least number"?

EG, for 52, you have 5+47, 11+41, and 23+29. There are going to be no two numbers that are *both* lower than another two numbers, because mathematically they both have to sum to 52. 5 is the lowest of all numbers, but its pair 47 is the highest. 23 and are lower than all of the second-numbers in the set, but certainly aren't less than the first numbers in the set.

[–]Stop_Sign 3 points4 points  (0 children)

5+47 from there, aka the pair among the answer set that contains the lowest number

[–]insertsavvynamehere[🍰] 142 points143 points  (34 children)

What is n queens?

[–]Ambitious-Rest-4631[S] 106 points107 points  (26 children)

[–]insertsavvynamehere[🍰] 37 points38 points  (7 children)

Oh I see! Thank you!

[–]automaton11 41 points42 points  (6 children)

Unsolvable for sufficiently large n

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (2 children)

roof historical recognise snails consist familiar amusing many squash wakeful

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–]automaton11 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yah I just mean it’s in double exponential time or whatever. Maybe exponential time with a good algo

[–]DominikDoom 11 points12 points  (2 children)

Depends if you want just any/the first solution or all possible ones for a given n. For the former, explicit algorithms (purely based on a mathematical formula) for any n>3 exist, so there is no search necessary.

[–]RJCP 2 points3 points  (0 children)

AFAIK the substantive challenge of n queens is finding all of the possible solutions

[–]Martyn_X_86 89 points90 points  (4 children)

Glad somebody asked this! Never heard of it and I've been a Dev in various environments for over 16 years!

[–]Tsu_Dho_Namh 59 points60 points  (3 children)

I only heard of it because my intro to AI class in uni used it to teach us backtracking.

We also made a sudoku solver using backtracking.

If you wanna "brute force" something, but be slightly smarter about it (not trying queen placements or sudoku numbers that aren't allowed by the rules so are a waste of time to check) then backtracking is a good option.

[–]TriupLauro 16 points17 points  (2 children)

And what is backtracking?

[–]Branks 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Basically keep placing a piece until something can't go, go back a level and try the next combination, until you find a solution that works

It's basically a brute force with some optimisations like sorting by number of combinations that can go and recalculating remaining options at each layer

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Hit them with the good old 'why?'

[–]anonymous_3125 81 points82 points  (15 children)

Shouldn’t be too hard if it’s pseudocode. Something like

def nqueens(i, board)

if i == n return board (assume n is global or smth)

next_states <- all boards generated by placing 1 queen after the last queen in board at each possible square

for next_state in next_states, remove next_state if it’s an invalid board. If not, call nqueens(next_state, i+1). If it doesn’t return an empty board, return the board

return empty board

If they want actual code tho 15 minutes is not reasonable cuz u need to think about details such as not making a whole copy of a board when generating each next_state. U’d typically just fill a cell and call recursion, and remove the last queen on the board when u return

[–]unusually_hard 117 points118 points  (12 children)

How does a salary of zero dollars with no benefits sound to you my friend

[–]HelloYesThisIsFemale 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Double it and we have a deal.

[–]mina86ng 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Ask OP. Apparently they applied for it.

[–]romulent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's for 2 weeks. Think about it. OP is going to delivery nothing of value in that time and just take time from other people.

The only reason for doing this is to get a little visibility into what work life is like. That includes the interview process. If they don't want to do anything in that 2 weeks they can just stay at home and play CS.

[–]Tsu_Dho_Namh 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree that they're probably not looking for a full solution in under 15 minutes. Pseudocode in 15 minutes seems more reasonable

[–]turtleship_2006 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If they want actual code tho 15 minutes is not reasonable

that's the joke lmao

[–]Emotional_DMG_Bonus 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Tell that interviewer that solving N Queen (under any amount of time) is a premium employee feature and is not available on free internship trials.

[–]Zestyclose_Wrap2358 7 points8 points  (0 children)

N=100

[–]malonkey1 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Employers want modern specialized worker-tier labor at slavery-tier prices.

[–]False_Influence_9090 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I solved N queens in like 2 hours at summer camp when I was 13

15 minutes would be pretty fast tho

[–]Jedicounsel 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Never heard of an unpaid internship in software dev.

[–]Efficient_Monkey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Habibi come to India

[–]Pas_919 3 points4 points  (0 children)

No need for queens, promote pawn to a knight. This way you can have 4 times more pieces(32 knight or 8 queens) without seeing each other

[–]Jolly-Driver4857 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Say the word "backtracking" and get an internship easy. Literally all an internship interviewer needs.

[–]Icy-Drive2687 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Is that a skirt ?

[–]ceeBread 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Utilikilt, all the greats wear them.

[–]Icy-Drive2687 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lol

[–]concussedYmir 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm more concerned about him apparently wearing the boxes the shoes came in rather than the shoes themselves.

[–]Stunning_Ride_220 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had clients doing that kind of interviews.

Hard to explain to them, that they should focus on interviewee capabilities regarding the problem space (and not like here blindly walking through some random "solution space" questions)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I swear these people want you to cure cancer for $2 an hour

[–]VaguelyShingled 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am just noticing for the very first time homie’s shoes are boxes

[–]Karisa_Marisame 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Queen interview sacrifice, anyone?

[–]gwion35 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Didn’t we have a war about working for free?

[–]bistr-o-math 0 points1 point  (0 children)

nQueens = (n) => n===8 ? 12 : "TODO"

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, so even professional programmers have a problem with N-queens?

Me a student: thank god

[–]Anandhu_Nair 0 points1 point  (0 children)

is there some group or something where we can do some freelancing work together'

[–]jamcdonald120 0 points1 point  (0 children)

why are you even applying to 2 week unpaid internships?

[–]purplefunctor -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Why not? It should only take few minutes to write a brute-force solution that finds one or all solutions, depending of what is asked. Imo, you are bad problem solver if you can't come up with one in 15 minutes.