Automattic's draconian conflict-of-interest policy is well known in and out of the organization: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20831965
We are not allowed to do outside work at any time during our employment without legal approval, including things as basic as part-time DOG WALKING (I won't ever forget that town hall debate). We have to shut down our money-making apps, are not allowed to do any type of consulting or freelance work, and are essentially barred from doing any kind of for-profit behavior without lawyers getting involved.
And yet you require your applicants to do paid work in their off-hours to even be considered for the job? How is that OK?
There's no forcing there. Most other companies allow you to work outside of the company, or know that it's unenforcable to tell you not to, so you do the trial. Otherwise, you do the trial at your own peril or quit.
I would say that how we work now 1 month is on the outside of how long I want the entire process to take, from application to offer letter. So that means the trial project can be a lot shorter.
People come in from all sorts of situations in terms of when and how they can participate, the key there is just communication. The team is very flexible in tailoring the process to be inclusive of different time restrictions people may have.
Finally I’ll just say as someone who used to be deep in the code and systems myself as WordPress and Automattic started and scaled, one of my favorite things today is seeing the impact new engineers joining can have on products and teams that impact large swathes of the web. If you’re curious at all about working with a fully distributed company with open source deep in its ethos, please drop in an application and come meet our folks. I’m always happy as well to exchange DMs or hop on a quick call to talk about our opportunities.