A review of Turing.com recruiting platform
Turing — Build Faster Than Ever With Vetted Remote Developers
About a month ago, before Coronavirus hit everywhere in the world, I was scrolling through facebook and I noticed an ad for Turing.com, a platform that tests developers and matches them with companies — with a focus on remote work, which is my favorite — .
Now I like these platforms as I believe there’s a huge gap in technical recruiting specially in the software world, and recruiters in general suck. At one point, I was seriously considering founding a startup similar to what they do as well.
I hate applying for software engineering jobs not because I hate interviewing — in fact I’m one of the few who really enjoys a technical interview — but rather because I hate interviewing 20 different companies to find 1 good position. Software is very niche and finding your perfect match will take a lot of effort.
Previously I tried TripleByte, which I consider the leader in the space. I ranked top 1% (top 20) in their interviews, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. Despite their streamlined process, I still had to spend 1 full month of time going through companies and offers and phone interviews and onsite interviews, etc. which is not fun.
It was around 1AM and I was like what the heck, lets give Turing.com a try. Clicked the facebook ad, jumped into their site, signed up and went through a bunch of coding questions in many different areas:
I took a bunch of programming tests and team building tests. The material was in general good, but the quality and design was mediocre at best. But I continued as I like to keep my skills sharp and challenge myself.
Prior to the Multiple Choice Questions, they also had 3 algorithm tests which were pretty straightforward as well (junior level stuff).
A few days later I received an email from them that I have been doing very good and that they like to proceed with me. At this point I had already forgotten all about them, so I said sure why not.
They asked me to take a few more tests, specifically the ones they had higher demand for (Go, React, etc.) and that a person will contact me soon discussing what I’m looking for.
A few days later I scheduled a Zoom call with a lady from their team who discussed what I’m looking for and salary expectations. I told her that I’m mostly looking for growth and challenge opportunities, and that salary is secondary to me, but I will not be considering anything under $100k.
A few days later I got calls scheduled with 4 of the founders, which seemed interested in me and wanted to hire me for their internal team. Having had a similar experience with TripleByte (they wanted me for their internal team too, and I didn’t want that to bias them against matching me with other good choices, as I like to have many choices when I negotiate and consider), I asked them to continue me on the matching track as well, and they said sure.
A few days later I received an email from the recruiter, Mr. K. that they have matched me to a company and would like to talk to me about it, introducing me to the CEO of the company. I said sure, and scheduled a call on Wednesday.
The day before that call on Tuesday, the founding team setup a Zoom meeting to give me an offer. Once I jumped on the call, they told me that they wanted to have me on the team as a Product Manager and with a base salary of $120k with room to grow, etc. However, they would first have me work on $60k for a trial period. That was the first red flag. I said fine, but what is the criteria for getting out of the trial period, i.e., how long and under what conditions? They clearly had not thought about it and had no clear answer, and were giving me contradictory answers. My conclusion was that, there is no end to the trial period, they just want to have me work for half the salary as long as they can, and then maybe let me go or work something else out. This was a huge red flag. Anyhow, I said I will think about it and they should think about what the criteria is and get back to me.
Come Wednesday, I had the call with Mr. K the recruiter and the CEO of the company that wanted me. I clicked really well with the CEO and we decide to move forward immediately. He sent me access to their Github repo to get some ideas and some estimates. I asked him for their typical contract, as the fine-print of the contract is usually important to me, and he sent me their template contract, along with the number he had in mind for me at $80/hr.
Mr. K emailed me a couple hours later that he has talked with the CEO and would like to move me forward with them. He also told me that they had locked in my desired rate of $42/hr (???) and that it is a great opportunity and I should agree early on.
Then I got an email from the CEO in an hour or so, saying that Turing.com had reneged my rate down to $73/hr from $80/hr. Weird.
I emailed back and asked Mr. K where he got the desired rate from and why is he negotiating me down, instead of up!? To which he kind of panicked and asked me to have a meet with his supervisor.
I jumped on the call and met with both of them. The supervisor being an Indian middle-aged guy, who was very charming but clearly a salesperson, trying to sell me the offer. He started by complimenting me then patronizing me and trying to force me to sign their contract. I said I will need to sleep on it. They kept insisting, and at this point the compliments turned into threats that “If you don’t sign now, who knows if they get someone else and you may not have any jobs in this coronavirus pandemic.” to which I replied I already have a job and my own company and I’m just checking options. But the car salesman approach and the threats was another red flag.
I finally told them that at the very least I’d need to hear back from their own engineering team if they want to hire me or not, which they had no idea about. So they did me a favor and called the engineering team and had them retract their own offer in hopes of persuading me to take the new offer quickly. Note that all of this is in the span of a few hours, despite me telling them that I never make such decisions in 1 day and I always sleep on it first.
After they cancelled the first offer, I told them that I’d give them the final answer on Monday, to have a few days to think about it. I also emailed the CEO, telling him what’s going on with details, and that I am not willing to move forward with a shady and pushy company.
Despite asking for a few days to think, they kept spamming me with calls and emails and even text messages that this is a good opportunity and I should not easily pass on it and I will not find another, bla bla bla. They even sent me their own contract and asked me to sign it!
The next red flag was in the fine-print of the contract. I have been in security for 15+ years, and I’m sort of crazy about privacy. I had told them this plenty of times early on, and that I will not ever install a time-tracking screen grabbing and keyboard tracking software on any of my machines, as I know how insecure these software are. They said no problem and they don’t have keyboard tracking software and their software only does time-track, and that I can do it manually too without screenshots, which is fine and I usually do that. But then in the fine-print, not only it said they can and will record keystrokes, it said both the partner company and Turing.com can access this information and can enable/disable it at will. Oh, oh! I understand the need for it, but why lie upfront? Is this a car dealership?
On Monday I told them that I cannot enter into any contract with Turing.com because at this point I no longer trust them with several red flags and shady behaviors. They made me jump into another call with Mr. K and the Indian fella where they said they understand and all is well, and asked me sort of rudely to not engage with the company on my own anymore — which was something I had agreed on earlier with the CEO as we both agreed Turing.com is shady but it is the medium which introduced us so it would be unethical to continue our collaboration — .
I told them upfront what the red flags were and that my experience with them was a car dealership experience, and that I would only continue if they received their cut and did not require me to work with Turing.com in any capacity ever again, to which they said it is something they cannot do and retaining talent is their top priority, which makes sense as their business model is not recruiting but enslaving, they find people in other countries that have lower expectations, upsell them to US companies, and take a 50% paycut for doing pretty much nothing. I mean, taking a 20% or even 30% paycut would be tolerable but 50% is crazy!
Despite me telling them that I want nothing to do with Turing.com and have made up my mind, they kept insisting that I should take this job! And that if I change my mind ever I should just sign the contract and take the job, which further reinforced for me how much profit they make off these deals and that all they care about is the profit and nothing more. So at this point they were not as bad as recruiters, but way worse.
I told them at that point that I will be writing this post (it was about 2 weeks ago), and that I would have them read it and give them a chance to respond if they will, and ended it there.
I felt obliged to write this post as I realized a lot of talented developers are already working with Turing. Some of them even seem happy. It is fine, but Turing being dishonest and shady with both sides of the deal is something I do not consider fine. If any of Turing developers (or future developers) reads this, please contact me and I will help you find a good job for free, so that you can reach your full potential.
P.S. A lot of folks are asking me what other platform to use. I strongly strongly suggest using TripleByte. It is a bit US-centric, but nowadays there are plenty of remote options. TripleByte is also leaps and bounds ahead of competitors in terms of their analysis, platform quality and test quality. It won’t take a lot of your time but it will give you tons of good opportunities!
If you use my referral link (https://triplebyte.com/iv/PNpElcE/cp/header) I will also get a $2000 bonus if you get landed in a job. No pressure though, you can just head to their website and sign-up yourself.
Feel free to hit me up on Gmail, Twitter, Github, Telegram, etc. if you have any questions or feedback.