[vnorilo]

Good observation.

Writing as second author was a very positive factor very early on. I was an assistant to a research fellow from my second year at uni, mostly because of coding skills. Pretty soon they encouraged me to write a pragraph or two about the implementation details, and I got added to the author list. I felt that was appropriate and a great kickstart to a research career (got my first MIT press journal credit before my bachelor)

I agree however that professors growth-hacking their publication lists with student labor is problematic indeed and looking at first/second author creds is a good way to flag such behavior.