Ask HN: Can "Pull Request to Get Hired" Replace Traditional Tech Hiring?
2 jerawaj740 6 7/12/2025, 8:22:00 PM
I’ve been thinking: what if hiring was as simple as submitting a pull request?
Instead of resumes and endless interviews, candidates could fork a company’s repo (or a prepared test repo), fix a bug or add a small feature, and get hired based on real contribution.
Has anyone tried this? What are the challenges, and would companies actually hire this way? Curious to hear thoughts from both founders and engineers
"Do some free work for us and we'll think about if we want to pay you for more" is a dystopian way of hiring that expects the job market to provide a perfect fit with no investment by the company.
I would wage salary suffers somewhere that is focusing on this type of recruitment, because it's focusing on the non-growth side of the problem. Focus your energy where you can build yourself and others up to find success, especially in hiring.
You might as also opt out of any company telling you to do a take-home challenge or even a mindless leetcode puzzle that you have to solve for free as a wasted proof of work to the employer to hire you for.
Pull request + bounties are much better since you get paid when you solve the issue and comma.ai does this where regular contributors are easily identified, paid and have the chance to be hired.
[0] comma.ai/bounties