Nine rounds. Eleven weeks. One auto-reply.
The fintech called the role urgent — then ran nine rounds across eleven weeks before ghosting.
Senior platform engineer · UK fintech, Series C · company on file
Read the full story →True stories · told to the Host, tagged, on record
Every story here happened to a real person.
Submitted, interviewed, and written up with the details that matter: how many rounds, how many hours, and where it fell apart.
Take-home asked for "production-ready microservice, ~4 hours." Repo shows 31 hours of commits.
Take-home labelled 4 hours. Actual commit history: 31 hours.
Candidate rejected for "lack of React depth" by a panel using the docs site he maintains.
Panel rejects candidate for lack of React depth — using the docs site he maintains.
Recruiter reschedules final round for the fourth time, asks candidate to "stay flexible."
Four reschedules, one request to "stay flexible." Candidate withdrew.
Two calls. Five days. Offer.
40-person startup. One intro call. One paid pairing session (90 mins). Offer in 5 days.
The four-hour take-home with 31 hours of scope.
Staff engineer's "4-hour" take-home consumed 31 hours of her life across two weekends.
Staff engineer · HR-tech scale-up · company named in story
Read →Rejected by the panel that uses his docs.
Open-source maintainer rejected for "lack of depth" by panelists using the docs he maintains.
Open-source maintainer · US product company · company on file
Read →The offer that expired before it arrived.
Verbal offer Friday with Monday deadline. Written offer Tuesday. Rescinded before she could respond.
Engineering manager · adtech · company on file
Read →"Stay flexible": one final round, rescheduled four times.
Final round rescheduled four times. The fifth date was never offered.
Senior backend engineer · logistics unicorn · company on file
Read →The reference check for a job that didn't exist.
Seven rounds, two reference checks, and 11 weeks of silence. Was the job even real?
Principal engineer · healthtech · company on file
Read →Got one of your own?
Ten minutes with the Host. You approve every word before it's published — named or anonymous, your call.
Start the interview →HOST: What did the rejection email actually say?
YOU: There wasn't one. There's never one.
YOU: There wasn't one. There's never one.