What should you settle in writing before agreeing to a startup's paid trial project?
answer
- Treat the brief like a small contract
- Cap the hours and set a deadline
- Rate, timing, and who owns the output
- Who reviews it, against what criteria
- Does it replace rounds or add to them
basics
~20 sScope and deliverable, a capped number of hours, the rate and when it is paid, who owns the output, who evaluates it and against what, and whether finishing it replaces the remaining rounds or adds to them.
solid answer
~50 sTreat the trial brief like a small contract, because that is what it is. Before you start, get written answers to six things: what the deliverable is and what is explicitly out of scope; a cap on hours and a calendar deadline; the rate and when payment lands; who owns the resulting work and whether any of it may ship; who evaluates it and against which criteria; and whether completing it ends the loop or sits on top of further conversations. Also check what access you need and what confidentiality obligations come with it. Separately, check your current employment agreement, because whether paid outside work is permitted varies by contract and by jurisdiction. If a company will not cap the hours or put the terms in writing, that itself is the signal: substantive work delivered for free is a cost you should not absorb quietly, and norms and rules around it vary by market.
go deeper
Know that a trial project is paid work, not a homework exercise, and that asking for the scope, the hours cap and the rate in writing is normal. Never start days of substantive work on a verbal description alone.
Explain the six terms worth settling: deliverable and exclusions, hours cap plus deadline, rate and payment timing, ownership of the output, evaluation criteria, and whether the trial replaces remaining rounds.
Show that you negotiate the brief the way you would a project at work: raise scope growth in writing when it happens, confirm who reviews the output, and check your own contractual position on paid outside work rather than assuming it is fine.
Own the fairness tradeoff. Trials give the truest signal in small-company hiring and simultaneously filter out anyone who cannot absorb the time, so be able to argue when a trial is the right format, how to scope one that does not exclude, and when to decline one outright.
## What a trial project is, and is not Some small companies replace part of the interview loop with a short paid engagement: a few days or a week of real work, usually remote, sometimes alongside the team. It is not a take-home exercise, which is a synthetic scoped task judged as an artefact, and it is not a pairing round, which is a supervised session inside the loop. A trial is contract work whose secondary purpose is evaluation, and the difference matters because contract work carries terms. Done well, it is the fairest format in small-company hiring: you see the codebase and the team, they see you work, and both sides decide on evidence rather than on interview performance. Done badly, it is unpriced labour with a moving target. ## The six things to settle in writing **1. Scope and deliverable.** What is done at the end, and what is explicitly not in it. Ambiguous scope is what turns a three-day trial into a two-week one. **2. An hours cap and a deadline.** Both, not one. A cap without a deadline drifts; a deadline without a cap invites you to absorb nights. A trial of about fourteen to eighteen working hours across a week is a common shape for a senior engineer, and stating the cap out loud is normal and expected. **3. The rate and the payment terms.** What you are paid, on what basis, and when it lands. A company that intends to pay will answer in one line. **4. Ownership of the output.** Who owns what you produce, whether it may be used in the product if you are not hired, and what happens to it if you are. Ownership and assignment terms vary by contract and by jurisdiction, so read what you are asked to sign rather than assuming a default. **5. Who evaluates it, and against what.** Ask for the criteria in the brief. This is the difference between a trial and an audition with a hidden rubric, and it is also the fairest question you can ask on behalf of every candidate after you. **6. Whether it replaces the rest of the loop.** Confirm explicitly. Some companies run the trial instead of their technical rounds; others add it after, and a few keep adding stages. Knowing which one you are in tells you what the trial is worth to you. ## Two checks that sit outside the brief **Access and confidentiality.** A real trial usually means access to a real environment. Expect a confidentiality agreement, and expect to be careful about what you retain afterwards, including whether you may show the work in a portfolio. Ask. **Your current obligations.** Whether you may take paid outside work while employed depends on your existing contract and on local rules, both of which vary; check yours rather than assuming, and if in doubt take advice on your own situation. Scheduling matters too: a trial competes with a full-time job in a way that a two-hour interview does not. ## Unpaid trials A company asking for several days of substantive work with no payment is asking you to fund their evaluation. Norms differ by market and by company size, and the legal position around unpaid work varies by jurisdiction, so this is a judgment call rather than a rule. The workable stance is to ask for it to be paid, and if it cannot be, to shrink it to something proportionate, a few hours rather than a week. Note the asymmetry: candidates who cannot absorb a week of unpaid evenings are filtered out by the format itself, which is worth naming if the company seems unaware of it. ## A worked example A nine-person seed-stage company sends its trial brief attached to its one-page hiring note. The brief names a deliverable, a sixteen-hour cap across nine calendar days, a rate, and a line saying the trial replaces the remaining technical conversations. It does not say who reviews it. The candidate replies asking two questions: who reviews the work and against what criteria, and whether the output may ship if they are not hired. Both answers come back in a paragraph, and the terms are now complete. The candidate then prepares by reading the product rather than by drilling algorithm exercises, which nothing in this loop will ask for. ## How to raise the terms without sounding adversarial One short message, framed around delivering well: happy to do this, want to make sure I hit what you need, so can you confirm the deliverable and what is out of scope, the hours cap, the rate and timing, who reviews it and against what, and whether this replaces the remaining rounds. Founders who have thought about their process answer quickly; the ones who cannot answer have told you something useful about how work gets specified there.
- The company says the trial cannot be paid but is only a few hours. Is that acceptable?It can be, if it really is a few hours and the scope is fixed in writing. Norms vary by market and the legal position on unpaid work varies by jurisdiction, so treat it as a judgment call: keep it proportionate, cap it, and be aware the format quietly filters out candidates who cannot absorb unpaid evenings.
- How would you handle the scope growing halfway through the trial?Name it immediately and in writing: state what is done, what the addition would cost in hours against the agreed cap, and ask whether to swap it for something already in scope. Delivering silently over the cap teaches the company that your estimates are elastic, and it is the same conversation you would have on the job.
- Should you ask whether the trial output will ship if you are not hired?Yes, and ask it before starting. Ownership and assignment terms vary by contract and jurisdiction, so read what you sign. Practically, if work you were paid a trial rate for goes to production, that is worth knowing when you weigh the engagement, and a company with clear terms will answer without friction.
saying these in an interview costs you the question
- Starting a trial with no hours cap and no deadline agreed
- Assuming the trial replaces later rounds without confirming it
- Delivering days of substantive work unpaid because the brief calls it a sample
- Never asking who reviews the trial or against what criteria
- Preparing algorithm drills for a loop whose only technical round is the trial
- Signing access and confidentiality terms without reading what they cover