# Twenty-Four-Hour Take-Home, Three Technical Rounds, Six Weeks of Silence — Then “Not a Fit”

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Software engineer · anonymous company · via X

An engineer walked into a five-stage gauntlet and out the other side holding a form letter. The process ran: an online assessment with three medium-to-hard DSA problems, a technical round built on a resume walkthrough, a 24-hour take-home assignment to build a full-stack monitoring system, then two more technical rounds. By their count, that is five stages of someone else’s time, a full weekend of it unpaid.

Then came 1.5 months of complete silence. When the reply finally arrived, it was the standard “You’re not a fit for this role.” The engineer’s question, posted to X, has the flat logic of someone who did the arithmetic: if they weren’t a fit, why did it take an online assessment, a 24-hour assignment, three technical rounds, and six weeks to reach that conclusion? They don’t mind rejection, they said. They mind investing hours of preparation in a process that cannot tell a yes from a no in real time.

The company is unnamed. The take-home, the rounds, and the silence are the story.

*Source: [@devXritesh · X · 63 likes, 21 replies](https://x.com/devXritesh/status/2082856290129441246)*
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