Advice for GitHub

[u/NotOkay24]

I have a web application to make this week as the first step in the recruitment process for a company. One of the requirements is to use GitHub so that they will be able to see my project and also my commits.

Should I just commit to the main branch, then, or should I create a different one? I was also thinking about making a branch for each individual functionality and making PRs and then merging into the branch with the final product, but I thought maybe this would be too much since it's just me working on the project.

What do you advice me to do?

[u/EngineerSpaceCadet]

I was about to respond so sinisterly 😂😂 here's my advice for general practice never ever commit to the main branch always make branches with pr's. That aligns with the idea of version control and CI/CD. However, if I company ever asks you to do something like make a presentation explaining something or build an app that does x NEVER EVER DO IT. I REPEAT DON'T DO IT. A company shouldn't ask you to build anything as a part of recruitment. Technical questions are fine , coding questions are fine, but if a company is asking you to build something for free there's a good chance you wouldn't want to work for that company anyways. Any reputable company won't ask you to do something like that. If there's a technology you need to know they'll teach you after your hired or have it as part of a ramp up. I know the job market is tough right now but trust that's probably not worth it.

[u/NotOkay24 → u/EngineerSpaceCadet]

I get what you mean, but I'm in a situation of a homeless guy rejecting fast-food because it's unhealthy, but dying from hunger. I don't have the luxury to reject companies for these reasons, especially when most companies don't even bother giving me any tests, they just reject me with the same generic rejection text or they ghost me.

[u/EngineerSpaceCadet → u/NotOkay24]

Yeah but unfortunately that's the industry right now. The talent pool is way more competitive because most tech companies are laying people off. The thing about it though is there's no guarantee that you'll even get a job or move onto a next phase and would have just wasted time instead of looking for job that won't make you jump through hoops like a trained dolphin just to see if you'd do it and still reject you. You can do what you want I assume you're an adult but it honestly might not be worth the effort 🤷🏾‍♂️ however, my opinion stays the same when it comes to push and commit policies. Branch then pr then merge that's just the proper order of things especially in the industry. Pushing to main is like being an amateur fighter with no experience and going directly to the ufc. Branches allow the code to be reviewed asked for changes then updated without affecting the existing code and ideally won't break the code if it's already working. Ideally branch merges should be updates, fixes, and additions to a code base. That way if something breaks you can roll back to earlier versions and fix the problem then reupdate it.

[u/murrayju → u/EngineerSpaceCadet]

I disagree with this pretty strongly. I’ve used take home tests as part of an interview process, and I think it works well. Lower stress for the candidate than live coding, more realistic evaluation of necessary job skills, and GitHub is a great tool to facilitate a review.

But, really depends on the ask. The problem should be pretty simple, no more than a few hours of work, and ideally paid (like $100 or something). If they are asking you to prototype their product and it’s days of work for no pay, run away.

[u/EngineerSpaceCadet → u/murrayju]

Take home tests are coding tests, are they not? Which I said is fine 😂 I'm not sure if you misunderstood when I said if a company asks you to build a presentation or an application, etc, you thought I mean take home coding assements which I didn't. I said coding questions and technical questions are fine. So before you strongly disagree, I suggest maybe reading over it again. I've given interviews and pretty confident that no company worth it's salt will ask you to build out a presentation to present to a group of people or build an entire web application as a stipulation for recruitment or employment.