Rejected? My dude, there's no rejections, just the dead silence of being ignored.
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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After losing my job to outsourcing early last year and watching the space since then, I have given up on working as a software engineer. I'm currently looking for work at a grocery store or something. I'm simply not interested. I love programming and software in general, but have fallen totally out of love with that career.
No feedback email either. Possibly just ghosted.
if you want feedback, don't bother doing any of the coding challenges/tests and they'll send you a "we're disappointed" email. lol
I have interviewed people for a long long time, and unless they were egregiously bad (obviously cheating, or failed every part of the technical) I have always written them a paragraph of feedback.
Every single candidate. It’s not hard, takes 5 minutes
Sometimes hiring managers aren't allowed to provide any feedback because it can create legal liability.
But usually they just don't want to.
How does it create liability to say “I’d like to have more advanced Python skills, specifically the using object oriented code to structure a solution to the problem”
I feel like society has gone insane. Don’t do anything, it might upset someone, or you could step on someone’s emotional support ant, and we’ll get sued!
It doesn't, but someone could write something that did. Like referring to an incorrect answer that the candidate then wants to prove in court was actually correct, and so they were unfairly rejected.
So either you screen every piece feedback by the legal team, which would be very expensive, or you just don't give feedback as a rule.
I'm not saying this makes sense - it doesn't - just saying that's the rationale that leads to it.
you're a unicorn! lol
It’s just basic respect.
one that's no longer extended and i'm glad to hear you do it.
yeah most companies don't even bother with the courtesy email anymore
IDK how common this is, but there are stories of companies that make you work on real production code in the interview. Basically suckering you into free work before they give the position to the boss's cousin or something.
I've heard about this kind of shit, but never seen it myself.
UK company Brewdog were up to that shit allegedly. Probably easy enough to Google.
I had a startup give me a take home to implement a graphql api on top of some sample data they gave me. Recruiter said they were in the middle of a migration and I made some assumptions
that's when you randomly mix up the sample data but still turn in the results
y'know, if you want to
Someone asked me to do a minimal but fully working prototype of... a docker hosted store front? It was apparently not very good, but the startup was kind enough to tell me why and I learned a lot. It did work, but I shoved entire python objects into sqlite and that just worked.
Ultimately I don't know if it was what they wanted, they fixed three things and used it or if it was truly not good enough.
When I was applying for sound design and music job for video games, like 15 years ago, they regularly made me design 50+ sound effects and compose like 6 tracks just to never get back to me. One time, they even made me program a whole ass interactive car engine sound plugin.
And you don't want to hear about academic and arts call. "Please send us a 12 pages document with description, technical implementation data, a detailed realisation timeline, and 16 references of previous projects. Don't forget to pay the registration feeb and submit the document in 3 different language, so we can decide what project will get the 2000$ grant out the 127 we received. If you're lucky enough so that we read your project, you even might receive a generic rejection letter from us."
Exact same field, exact same personal experience, except it was a dragon instead of a car. Didn't even get to put it on my demo reel because it was their IP, they said.
More like
- Send 157 CV's
- Somehow pass the AI gauntlet to get an HR screener
- Interview with someone else in HR that knows about development, lightly
- Interview with the hiring manager
- Interview again with the hiring manager, and their manager
- Interview again with an actual developer on the team / technical interview
- Get automated rejection email 2 months later
More like this most of the time
👻
- Be me.
- Apply for job listing that requires Python experience.
- /home/tootsweet/python_projects/python_genius.py
- Called and invited to team interview.
- Arrive dressed like perfect corporate cog, leather binder in hand.
- "Do you know C#?"
- Listing never mentioned C#.
- Me: "No."
- "We're switching from Python to C#."
- Didn't get the job.
Later worked with former employees of $aforementioned_employer. They have a terrible habit of hiring in droves, only to lay off half their workforce every few years.
Hah Crytek did that to me circa 2015, C# role but then they changed their minds to C++ and told me "not to worry" 🤣
I dont even get rejection, there is just no reply from the other side. Where am I in this meme?
Fixed it
🤣
I guess OP never applied for a job outside of software engineering? Other people have their own chain of pointless assessment centers and interviews with everyone to get that sweet rejection at the end.
I had a little brother that applied to Aldi's. Like as a cashier and/or stocker. 3 interviews then rejection
Don't know if it's still a thing in hiring for minimum wage jobs - what I remember were all the meyers briggs and similar test. When someone tells me their personality type from one of those test, I instantly start thinking that they never had a retail hell job stage of their working life
I don't think I've ever used a cv