hiring, web-developmentA System’s Engineering student from a college in my town offered me free development work in exchange of my team teaching him how to code. We are currently starting the development of our product so it would be perfect timing to acquire a new member that asks nothing as payment, what should I consider if we accept his proposal? Thanks
It sounds like you’re looking to pretty well bring this person on as an unpaid intern. There are definitely aspects of that to take into consideration, but it is pretty common practice.
That said, there are definitely some things to think about.
##Nothing’s really free…
First is what’s expected of unpaid interns. There was a court ruling–I can try and find it if you need–about internships, wherein the decision was essentially that an unpaid intern needs to get more from you than you do from them. That’s really targeted at practices like making an intern run for coffee when they should be coding, though, so it’s probably not too much a concern for you. Just something to take into consideration.
##…including your time.
Along those same lines, make sure you have time to teach the person. Don’t expect them to write production-ready code on the first day. It can take years to learn how to program without getting tripped up too often, as I’m sure you know, and many more years on top of that to learn how to program well.
If this person has some experience just fiddling around with code, that can tell you two excellent things: they probably have the basics down–at least the silly stuff like what a method or class is and how they’re used–and they probably love it, since they’re willing to spend their free time on it.
##Programming is about more than writing code.
Remember, in all this, that while the person may go into this looking to learn how to code, and you might go into this looking to teach them and get some free stuff written, that there’s a lot more to software development than new List<string>(), and even code itself can be somewhat complex, emotionally. I imagine many developers will know what I mean by that. Or else I’ll sound really weird right now. Either way.
When you bring someone on that has zero experience, expect them to want to jump right in. When I first learned how to program (granted, I was eight), the first thing I wanted to write was a video game. It’s hard to grasp when you’re new to something, how much work it takes. That goes for you and for the intern: they’ll want to get started fast, and you’ll want them to. But that’s not how you build good products, or developers. Be ready to take the time with them.
Along those same lines, and speaking to my actual point in this section, it can be hard to know what you really want right off the line. This could be read as an argument to never allow anyone new ever to code, and obviously I don’t mean that, but remember that when the intern starts, they might get bored of it, or find the developer’s life isn’t for them. Humans aren’t guaranteed investments. That’s true for full-time hires, but it’s particularly true for someone who’s never done any of it before.
##It may not last forever.
This could probably go unsaid, it’s pretty obvious, but to the same effect as my previous paragraph, remember that an unpaid intern might not stick around forever. You might train them to code, then they can go off and find someone who’s willing to pay them. This is kind of the opposite of my previous point: there, I was saying that they might not like it or be good at it, here, they might love it and be amazing, and move on.
Hopefully that’s not much of an issue, because at that point they’ll have enough morale in your company and you’ll be ready to pay them, but keep it in mind.
The time it takes for someone to hit that point is difficult to predict, and you might be able to make the situation more reliable through the use of contracts, but that won’t do anything for morale.
Just try and keep people happy, and hopefully this won’t be too much of an issue.
##It’s just like any other hire.
Finally, just remember that an unpaid intern is just like any other hire at a human level. You want someone who’s keen and excited about what they’re doing, and someone who gets along well with the team.
Again, this is probably pretty obvious, but it’s easy to look at interns differently, as more of a temporary assignment, and while that’s often the case, you still want someone who will keep your company happy for the duration of their stay, especially with so many intern turning into full-time employees these days.
You don’t have to be as strict about prior knowledge, obviously, as you might be with a paid employee, but be careful not to undervalue their impact on the team’s dynamic, especially in a small startup.
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