Turing™ is a Con
I watched a interview clip with Arthur C Clarke some time ago. It’s the 60s and he’s standing in a room of huge computers, the kind they made back then that used tape memory—my dad often reminds me of the computer installed at his grammar school, there was a whole room dedicated to it— amongst the machines, Clarke is talking about work in the future. He says, people will be able to work from where-ever they want, they can live in the country rather than in the cities, work from home rather than in an office.
My company is now asking me politely if I’ll think about coming into the office, maybe once a week? I respond, oh alright (jeez).
What’s funny is, I’m working for a small-ish company now, local to the city I live in. There’s still a lot of companies who want people in the office for company culture reasons but there’s also a huge trend towards remote working more generally.
What Clarke doesn’t mention is this: how does working from anywhere effect salary and house prices?
In the UK, everybody knows working in London will earn you higher wages but that also means paying more rent. In a country where working from home is becoming more and more common London-based employees no longer have to worry about paying extra to make up for an employees living costs. If they can find a talented programmer outside of London what difference does it make?
So wages start to flatten out and everybody’s got a fair chance. If it doesn’t matter were you live then programmers who don’t live in London also get to apply for the job. That’s a good thing right?
You can move anywhere you like within the UK. If rent prices are too high, move further north. It’s likely you can keep your job and poorer cities and towns will benefit from the wealth you bring with you.
Oh but wait a minute, the internet also exists outside of the UK as well.
Let me introduce Turing, the place where you can “Apply to Elite US Remote Developer Jobs”. Notice that word: “Elite”. Doesn’t that make you feel great?
Before I started working at my current job I was looking for work on various freelancing platforms when I came across Turing. It peaked my interest because it sells itself as a platform chosen by Silicon Valley companies, Facebook, Google etc. It even gives you a test before it lets you sign up.
I love a challenge, I also love having my ego stroked by passing a challenge.
I’m one of those programmers who secretly enjoys the fact that nobody can understand my code when I do Functional Programming.
So I’m in Turing, I have an account. Next step, more tests. Turing has a number of phases you have to pass before you’re even able to apply for a job:
- Multiple choice questions
- Three specialism tests
- Two timed algorithm tests
I passed all of these phases (the third one within milliseconds of the timer running out) and found myself in a Zoom interview with an Indian woman at 6am.
This was now the third week after I’d originally signed up. She asked me some questions about my experience (fairly disinterested) then went on to ask me how much I expected to earn. I said around 600 per day.
She paused then said, that’s quite a lot. Most freelancers on Turing ask about 300 per day.
I said, hold on. For a senior developer? This is for Silicon Valley right? Surely Facebook and Google are paying at least that much for contract work.
Now, you might actually think 300 per day is a good wage. It’s ok for a single, young developer, someone starting out. But it’s relative to the work you’re doing, how much the company are earning in relation to your work and how much your outgoings are. Let’s take an example of an average company in the UK.
A small UK company, making about 1 million per year, will pay around 120 thousand per year for a single developer working for an agency. That’s about 500 per day.
And this is fairly cheap. I used to work for an agency who charged 550 for junior, 600 for senior and 650 for principle developers. 500 per day is perfectly reasonable for a company making up to 1 million per year.
According to a CNBC report Facebook made around 20 billion in 2021…per quarter!
So, when my interviewer said most developers on Turing are looking earn about 300 per day I said, that’s ridiculous. She said it’s up to you, you can put your price at 600 and we’ll go from there. I said sure, but no one’s going to hire me on Turing for 600 if all the other candidates are charging half that amount.
Turing’s pool of developers are mostly living in either India or Brazil. Very smart developer’s who have a fraction of the outgoings of the average Englishman or American.
Great for them, they can get Facebook on their CV, which means better jobs in future. Great for Facebook, they can charge almost nothing for smart developers who can rival many found in California.
Turing has an obfuscated and long winded process which meant it took me 3 weeks to even find out how much I could expect to earn on the platform. I half expected there to be a con somewhere along the line, but I thought it would be that Facebook and Google don’t really hire through Turing or that the jobs would be few and far between. Actually no, Google and Facebook are most definitely hiring through Turing, and from the listings, they’re hiring from them a lot.
But it’s a bad deal if you’re expecting to be paid well.
Personally I don’t think having Facebook or Google on my CV is worth it. Instead I joined a local company who pay me a decent salary and ask me to come into the office maybe once a week.
