My company just announced their "innovative" new hiring process. As I write this, I'm still shaking - partly from trauma, partly from the caffeine needed to survive it.
456 programmers. One job opening. Six elimination rounds with rules that would make Squid Game look merciful.
Round 1: Legacy Code Red Light, Green Light
They threw us into a room with a 10-year-old codebase. No documentation. Just endless lines of spaghetti code written by developers long gone. The rules were simple: fix it without crying. I watched in horror as developers broke down at the sight of nested callbacks. Those who shed tears were "eliminated" from the candidate pool.
Round 2: Production Debug or Die
Debug live production code while the CEO watches. Someone whispered "have you tried turning it off and on again?" We never saw them again. The CEO wore a suit with circle patterns. I still have nightmares about those circles.
Round 3: The Requirements Games
A product manager in a triangle mask kept changing requirements every 3 minutes. "Make it pop!" changes mind "No, make it invisible!" changes mind again "Can you make it pop invisibly?" I saw a senior developer rock back and forth, muttering "Agile isn't supposed to be like this."
Round 4: Pair Programming Battle Royale
They paired us with our mortal enemies. I got stuck with someone who uses spaces instead of tabs. We had to complete a feature together without killing each other. The passive-aggressive comments about indentation still echo in my dreams.
Round 5: The Family Tech Support Challenge
"Explain blockchain to your elderly relatives." Most didn't make it. I watched a brilliant systems architect break down trying to explain why cryptocurrency isn't actually coins. "No, Grandma, you can't put Bitcoin in your penny jar..."
Final Round: The Ultimate Test
Write a perfectly centered div without looking up CSS. No Stack Overflow. No Google. Just you, your trauma, and your questionable memory of flexbox properties.
The Prize
I won. The prize? A job paying $2 per month with "unlimited" snacks.
Update: The snacks were eliminated in the latest round of budget cuts. They said it was part of their "lean startup methodology."
Why This Feels Too Real
Here's the scary part - remove the masks and dramatic eliminations, and how different is this from regular tech interviews? We already:
- Debug mysterious code
- Face changing requirements
- Deal with stakeholder pressure
- Solve arbitrary puzzles
- Write code on whiteboards (basically torture)
At least in Squid Game, they were clear about the rules.
(Note: This is a satirical take on tech interviews. Any resemblance to actual hiring processes is unfortunately not coincidental at all.)
Update: Three other companies have reached out to adopt this interview format.
They're adding a round where you have to solve leetcode while standing on one foot.
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