Six hours of free work, then silence: a Hong Kong startup CEO ran a production sprint disguised as an interview

A software engineer applied to a Hong Kong startup. The CEO conducted the interviews personally — starting 10 minutes late from a noisy restaurant. After noticing the candidate had experience with a specific design tool, he pivoted the process into multiple "skill assessment" sessions using actual production files, not dummy data. The candidate spent six hours across several late-night sessions, including an hour just setting up a trial version of software he didn't own. The moment the CEO downloaded the completed files, communication stopped. No rejection. No follow-up. Just silence. Reddit's r/recruitinghell called it what it was: unpaid consulting billed as hiring.