I don't recall hearing of (non-opensource) proprietary code being shown in an interview. Is that common in some circles?
In a startup, I think I'd have to get an NDA from everyone, even if the code was mindless bulk glue code -- if only to avoid having to later mention that practice to investors who are checking our IP diligence.
Would the following alternative work for you?
In a great engineering environment, people will give sincere answers to questions, or tell you when they can't tell you (because they don't know, or because of business-related conflicts). What about just asking them what their code is like, and see whether their answer sounds like they know what they're talking about, such that that they could give you an accurate answer.
Variation: if they know what they're talking about, but they misrepresented it intentionally, that's a really bad sign from an engineer. And hiring engineers under false pretenses would be a bad idea, as would setting precedent for engineers in that organization intentionally misrepresenting technical information to each other. (That doesn't mean that a dumb organization wouldn't establish an internal culture of dishonesty anyway, but you'll have to filter out the self-destructive and the scammers some other way.)
No, it isn't common. As an engineer you know it doesn't matter if you're shown some code (what are you going to do? memorize it?) and signing an NDA should be a thing anyway if they are concerned about secrets, so what's the worry?
But, if you have any real experience in the industry (rather than making up fake advice which sounds good on the surface) you'll know that few companies will show their code, because there is little to no benefit to them doing so.
I can also argue that is is almost impossible to show code to you for very simple reason: showing couple of files won't make any difference for you anyway and you can't just transfer your codebase to a person. The only thing you can do is to sit candidate to a laptop with the codebase for couple of hours, but I doubt anyone will go that far.
I'd argue that this will absolutely help filter out abysmal codebases made by people who have no idea how to code. I've seen companies like that, I've seen people who don't know how to format code, how to write proper function names in English, hell, I've seen people making Polish comments in an English codebase with grammar errors in their native language. But I agree with other comments, doubt anyone would actually show you code during an interview due to legal reasons.
I haven't seen NDA on interview from many startups in the Boston area. (Which is good, because I minimize the number of NDAs that I sign, and just try to be professional and collegial.)
The first NDA for an interview that I recall was from a big tech company, and most of it could be paraphrased as something like "Everything we tell you is under strict NDA; anything you tell us, we will treat as public domain" (or maybe it was more like nonexclusive license to use; I forget for certain which that particular company said, since I've also seen the latter since).
Later, I think that company reworked it to be more like "Don't tell us anything that could be proprietary to someone else!"
I don't think the company was trying to be malicious; the double-standard is because they don't want you in a position where you violate an NDA, AND they want to make it clear to their staff (the person interviewing you) not to press you for details.
Agree that their later wording is better, but I suspect good intentions from the start
I've signed NDAs for almost all large company I've interviewed at. But for most smaller startups, haven't had this requirement, as the interviews are more casual conversations. (Also, Boston area.)
Depends on your definition of normal. I've interviewed with 10 companies or so over the last 6 months, ranging from FAANG to series B startups, all US based.
One company asked me to sign an NDA, they're a well known public but non-FAANG Boston based company. I didn't have a problem signing it but I also don't really see the point.
In a startup, I think I'd have to get an NDA from everyone, even if the code was mindless bulk glue code -- if only to avoid having to later mention that practice to investors who are checking our IP diligence.
Would the following alternative work for you?
In a great engineering environment, people will give sincere answers to questions, or tell you when they can't tell you (because they don't know, or because of business-related conflicts). What about just asking them what their code is like, and see whether their answer sounds like they know what they're talking about, such that that they could give you an accurate answer.
Variation: if they know what they're talking about, but they misrepresented it intentionally, that's a really bad sign from an engineer. And hiring engineers under false pretenses would be a bad idea, as would setting precedent for engineers in that organization intentionally misrepresenting technical information to each other. (That doesn't mean that a dumb organization wouldn't establish an internal culture of dishonesty anyway, but you'll have to filter out the self-destructive and the scammers some other way.)