I genuinely regret and believed that I just got scammed by recruiter. There's a company wanted me to create a prototype of Social Media App in order to be qualified for the interview , which I completed in weeks, as soon as they got my source code, they went ghosting me.

I woke up in the early morning today, in my WeChat Moment appears to be an advertisement of a "Social Media App" , which the design and the concepts are very familiar.

So technically I just build the an app for their money making scheme, and I am unemployed.

I hate myself for making this decision, I thought the app is for testing my capabilities, but unfortunately that's not it...

我只是棋盤上的棋子...........

@rutee07 ? Open source it?

@johnmelodyme name and shame, and open source it!

A interview project should never be an entire working app though, but enough to show you can do what needs to be done.

Also did you mean weeks or week? Weeks would raise so many alarms to me.

@C0D4 Oh supposedly a prototype right? Yes weeks, 2 weeks of sleepless nights for completing that, for client side and the backend. It's a social media app for foodie btw,.

Exploit that motha fukkkaa (you built it)

@wackOverflow Exploit ? ( o.O)

Like everyone says, companies like this should not be allowed to exploit devs like you were.

Do the following:

* Upload your code on Github. Add a license to the repository (MIT or your preferred license).
* Include screenshots of your emails and communication with the company. You can censor your name and identifying info, what's important is the company name and the recruiter's name are visible on those screenshots.
* Update your repository readme with your story of how they scammed you. Put links in the readme linking to those screenshots.

Post the repo link here when you're done and hopefully some or more of us here will spread the news around.

@Kairpooph doing it now.

@Kairpooph by the way will o get in problem with the legal? By the way I'm in Malaysia and this happen all the time.

@johnmelodyme which is why you should keep yourself anonymous as much as possible. Edit the screenshots to hide your identity. Create a new Github account, don't use your personal one. I don't know how it is in Malaysia, but I doubt they can sue you if they can't find you ;)

@Kairpooph SUEING? NO it is ok then .... I am not enough guts to involve legal depart thing.

@Kairpooph THey will know who I am because they have my source code and the thing is identical.

Just wondering how much they can do with a product developed in two weeks?
Even big social media apps fail for so many reasons.
Shame you invested that much, but I'd propose to learn out of it. Small pieces of code can already tell how experienced you are. If I would tell someone to write this for interviewing reasons, I'd only do it to see whether I get a reasonable response like "sorry, this isn't appropriate, but I'm happy to do smaller things." or maybe even to get proposed what part of it she considers to be appropriate 🙂
"Social skills test", to give it a name

Good luck on further interviews

Not only could you open source it, you could take legal action afaik

You wrote it, so you have the copyrights to it, if they use it without permission from you, they're breaking the law

Edit: at least as far as I know, could be different in wherever you live and wherever that company is legally registered

@foox Not Much I guess. Social Media is competitive. Is just I am feeling bad that couldn't they just build their own? instead of using mine?

@Kairpooph I wouldn't go for MIT, that way you allow the company to use your code, but that's up to op to decide

@LotsOfCaffeine ok... I think I need to research on this one.

As far as the copyright stuff goes, if you haven't signed away your ownership rights of the repository, you still own it regardless. Look into the legal documents you signed with the recruiter, if any. If there are none or a transfer of ownership isn't mentioned, then you are the owner, not them. As such, you have every right to do whatever you want with it. As others have mentioned already, I would open source it and shame them. This is not how you treat a (potential) future employee.

@Condor SO If I do this, I will be safe right ?

@johnmelodyme I think you should be :)

@Condor Thanks for the advice. This is my first experience on this .

@johnmelodyme I genuinely hope it'll be the last too.. these recruiters really are the worst scum to walk this planet. Good luck!

@Condor You must be experienced this before?

@johnmelodyme I've seen it several times, although fortunately from seeing it happen to others, I've been able to avoid it myself. There's always drama involved with things like this, can't really get around that I'm afraid. But legally it's still theft on the company's end. Even if they try to wrangle their way out, you wouldn't have its source code if it wasn't yours in the first place. Do consider which license you put it under because when in doubt, you can do it only once! You probably want a license that sufficiently restricts any redistribution in particular. You may also release its source code and retain all rights to it. Public source code and all rights reserved are not mutually exclusive. This does stifle the open source development somewhat, but I don't think it is the primary purpose for this project. I would also put it on your CV actually. It's a good way to scare these companies away, and great for experience points :)

@Condor Wow Good Idea (n_n)