Welcome to the modern tech interview, where the weak are eliminated, the strong barely survive, and the final reward is a job where you’ll probably still be asked to reverse a linked list—for no reason.
Interviews in tech should be about finding the right fit for both the company and the candidate. Instead, we’ve turned them into brutal endurance tests that measure how well you’ve memorized obscure algorithms rather than how well you can actually do the job.
Let’s break down why tech interviews feel like a reality show—and how we can make them suck less.
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Round 1: The Application Hunger Games
Before you even get to an interview, you must first survive the black hole known as the Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
- Perfectly qualified? Doesn’t matter—your resume didn’t have the exact keyword match.
- Senior experience? Too bad, they’re looking for five years of experience in a framework that’s only three years old.
- Custom cover letter? Nobody read it.
If, by some miracle, you make it past this stage, you’re rewarded with…
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Round 2: The HR Gauntlet
Now you get a call from someone in HR who has never written a line of code but is here to assess your “technical fit.”
- “Tell me about yourself.” (Translation: Recite your resume back to me.)
- “Where do you see yourself in five years?” (Translation: We will absolutely not help you get there.)
- “What’s your expected salary?” (Translation: We want to lowball you.)
Pass this round? Congratulations! Now it’s time to suffer for real.
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Round 3: The Algorithmic Obstacle Course
Now you’re in the dreaded LeetCode Phase, where you’ll spend hours solving problems that will never come up in the actual job.
- “Given a binary tree, a stack, and an angry raccoon, find the optimal traversal algorithm.”
- “Design an LRU cache from scratch.”
- “Now solve it in O(1) time.”
Never mind that the job is 90% CRUD operations and bug fixes. If you can’t reverse a linked list blindfolded, you’re clearly unqualified.
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Round 4: The Take-Home Challenge (a.k.a. Free Labor)
Survived the LeetCode torture? Great! Now you get to spend an entire weekend building a “small” project.
- Estimate: 3 hours.
- Reality: 15 hours.
- Feedback: Crickets.
By Monday, you’re wondering if you just built part of their product for free. Spoiler: You probably did.
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Round 5: The Live-Coding Pressure Cooker
You’ve been invited to a final round interview, where you’ll be screen-sharing your IDE while someone silently watches you type.
- Your brain: completely empties.
- Your hands: forget how to type.
- Your interviewer: “Hmm… interesting approach.” (Instant panic.)
It’s like a hostage situation, except the hostage is your dignity.
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Round 6: The Cultural Fit Test
Even if you nail the tech, you still have to prove you “fit the culture.”
- “We’re like a family here.” (Translation: Expect unpaid overtime.)
- “We move fast and break things.” (Translation: We have no documentation.)
- “We need someone who can wear multiple hats.” (Translation: You’ll do three jobs for one salary.)
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Round 7: The Ghosting Phase
You crushed every round. You felt good about the interview. The hiring manager even said, “We’ll get back to you soon!”
Then… nothing.
- No rejection.
- No offer.
- Just silence.
You check your email daily. Maybe they lost your number? Maybe they got acquired? Maybe you got acquired? You’ll never know.
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How Do We Fix This?
Tech hiring doesn’t have to be a reality show. A sane interview process should:
- Test real-world skills, not textbook trivia.
- Be respectful of time, both for candidates and interviewers.
- Communicate clearly, instead of leaving people in ghosting limbo.
Until then, welcome to the jungle. May the odds be ever in your favor.
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Ever had a tech interview disaster? Drop your war stories in the comments. Worst one gets a virtual hug (or a recruiter’s phone number to ghost in return).
Top comments (1)
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My worst interview story was with a staffing company from my city. The recruiter told me she was going to test my IQ to see if I was smart enough for the job. I wanted to ask her how much she scored...But instead I ended the interview as soon as I could. "Run, Forrest, run!"