How companies hire defines the future of the industry. Here’s a time-lapse of a developer’s growth that shows it clearly:
Stage 1: Rose-Colored Glasses
Bob reads:
- In IT, people value proficiency. The ability to make hard decisions, and deep understanding of problems. In IT, people are paid for smart thinking and effective solutions.
- “Average salary starts at 115,835 dollars”.
- “The more experience you have, the higher your salary”.
- Stories of students without college degrees getting jobs after finishing a course.
“How great,” Bob thinks. “IT companies finally understood that filtering by diplomas removes good candidates, so they dropped it. Smart move!” Because of the shortage of developers, now is the perfect time to join.
In this article, we’ll talk about why these expectations are wrong.
Stage 2: Burnout Before an Offer
Bob finishes the course, but interviewers ask much deeper things - algorithms, system design basics, CI/CD details.
At first, Bob tries to learn everything properly, but after months he burns out - every new topic hides five more. Burnout before an offer - that’s something. So he decides to just memorize the answers. Next time, he is lucky and gets to the behavioral interview.
Bob answers honestly that salary matters to him, and though he likes learning, he’s not willing to work overtime. He believes that in IT, awareness and honesty are valued - and the system will recognize that. But recruiters doubt him.
After several tries, Bob learns to “play along.” It feels strange that the same people who dropped the diploma filter now build walls with word games. But those are the rules. So instead of talking about money, Bob talks about his “passion for IT” and “interest in the project.” He acts as if he’s ready to go the extra mile. Without noticing, he already wears a mask to pass the interview. Recruiters don’t understand his technical words - they studied economics. It seems absurd.
But it works.
Stage 3: Laziness
Bob gets hired, and his interview mask starts to hurt him. He stays late, building perfect technical solutions, while his colleagues lazily pick quick and dirty ones. Bob thinks it’s unfair, but the boss likes fast results. No one gets the benefit of rewriting everything in a “cool new language.”
Over time, Bob learns to be lazy too.
Another mask, another lie.
Stage 4: The Glasses Break
Bob grows as a specialist. After a year and a half, layoffs hit, and he has to look for a job again. With almost two years of experience, Bob decides he’s now a middle-level developer. But job listings say “2+ years of experience.” “They must know better,” he thinks sadly and applies for junior roles again.
He thinks: “Now I have more experience - it’ll be easier!”. For preparation, Bob opens the job description and top interview question lists. The job post looks like random bunch of requirements, and the questions are all theory. But theory and algorithms didn’t really help him in his last job - he mostly read logs and wrote tests. He realizes with horror that he’s studying things he’ll never use.
At night, he remembers his first thoughts about IT: “They pay for smart thinking and effective solutions.” Where did that go? Someone clearly did their job badly, but now it doesn’t matter - the interview does. The same theory, the same algorithms, just harder. That takes months of preparation.
Bob again has to show skills opposite to those actually needed for the job.
Stage 5: Go and Interview Others
Bob gets lucky and finds a new job. Five years later, he’s told: “You’re a senior now - go interview candidates.”
He remembers his painful interviews. They asked weird things. But maybe there’s some logic? They say algorithms test logical thinking - isn’t that important?
So Bob asks others the same questions. If it was done to him, there must be a reason.
On the other side of the screen sits a new junior who still believes that IT pays for smart thinking and effective solutions.
If every developer follows Bob’s path, the hiring market will change - and with it, the ideal candidate’s profile and the nature of IT.
Lie or Leave
Here are five reasons why you can’t pass interviews if you’re honest. When you explain your real motivation, you’ll politely get rejected. If you know what a developer’s job requires, you still won’t pass interviews. Often, your CV won’t even reach a recruiter’s desk.
I’m a developer, and I go to interviews every month with both European and USA companies. I’m evaluated and filtered by people with no technical background. You know these word games, right? I play them every time: I say money doesn’t matter and that I work “for the idea.” Any other answer is a red flag.
We’ll talk about nonsense filters, senior snobs, company biases, and hypocrisy. I’ll explain how we got here - and what you can do about it. The reasons are listed from the most important (those shaping the industry) to the time-wasters.
Blind Filter: Looking for the Oldest
Filtering by years of experience means losing competition and honest people. Following logic seems simple but is wrong: “The longer someone’s been in the industry, the better they work.” Managers think experience equals quality and speed, so they put “5+ years” in every senior vacancy. Recruiters won’t even open your CV if it says 4 years. 81% of employers still use experience-based hiring, and only 13% remove experience filters.
Six months after getting my first job, I asked for a 20% raise. My colleagues had 5–10 years of experience, but I noticed that it outperform many of them. The boss said no. The reason is I hadn’t been in the company a year yet, and I didn’t know databases deeply - “every dev must know SQL!”. But I hadn’t written or seen a single SQL query in six months. So I stretched my experience in CV from 6 months to 1 year - and got a new job with double salary. By sacrificing honesty once, I skipped years of waiting.
Don’t be loyal if you’re not being judged and paid by results.
Algorithms in Interviews Show the Interviewer’s Ignorance
An honest interviewer would ask, “Do we really need a candidate who can implement a Linked List?” A lazy one will find a reason to justify existing interviewing approach. None of 52 FAANG respondents said their companies stopped using algorithmic questions. Out of 30 interviews I had, 20 involved algorithms. Here is the story, when algorithm knowledge mattered (almost):
At my first job, I worked on the task requiring complex data manipulation. I was happy that finally i can write an algorithm. A week later, my senior mentor was looking at the result: “Nice work, but a similar algorithm is already implemented in Library X. Let’s use existing solution, so we don’t have to maintain custom logic.” That was the moment I realized I’d wasted hundreds of hours learning things I’ll never apply. To be sure I’m not an exception, I asked 20 senior backend developers if they ever used algorithms in their work. Not one did. I’ve changed four companies - still never wrote a bubble sort.
The crazy fact is that interview knowledge is more important than job knowledge: without the first, you won’t get hired; the second you’ll learn during probation.
If you interview someone, test them on tasks similar to their real job.
Job-Hoppers
Job-hoppers aren’t loyal, so companies don’t want them. They say such people leave quickly. You’re job-hopper, if you stay in company for 2 years or less. But in reality, most of the market are job-hoppers. Average time in one role is about two years. Gen Z stays only 1.1 years on average in their first five years.
If someone offers 40% more pay, you’re expected to say no - or you’ll be labeled a job-hopper. But what about layoffs, bad teams, or a toxic boss? Indeed career coaches advice to hide the details and lie, if it wasn’t positive ending. But your CV often won’t even reach that stage because of automated filters. A lying candidate will just stretch job experience; an honest person won’t get a chance to explain himself.
Job-hoppers don’t put company interests above their own. While the company meets their goals, they work better than anyone.
I know people who’ve stayed in one company for over ten years. They’re experts in that product - and nowhere else. They don't know other frameworks, other products, other methodologies. Their skills froze in time. They ask outdated questions in interviews and invent irrelevant filters that harm business.
I believe that If you’re a junior with three years in three companies, you’ll bring more value than such a senior.
Working Two Jobs
In IT, you can easily have two jobs and still work eight hours total. I know colleagues who feel it’s their duty to report anyone they suspect of being “overemployed.” If you mention that you see nothing wrong with working 2 jobs in an interview, and you’re out.
But this thinking is wrong:
Imagine that you work with an inefficient employee who spends half their day on TikTok or chatting. Many people will recognize themselves or their colleagues in this description. Such a person is worse than someone working two jobs, because the second one spends time developing professionally. Two jobs allow you to grow as a developer twice as fast.
/r/overemployed has 500,000 readers. They prove the system is outdated by their attention and example. Companies still don't know how to evaluate performance of IT engineers and with AI, developers reach cruise-level productivity. In a U.S. company of 100 employees, about 5 will have multiple jobs - not only in IT.
If an employer finds out, they demand you quit the other job without checking if that’s their right. But that’s overstepping the law: banning multiple jobs is a labor rights violation in most countries.
To be overemployed means to protest an inefficient system. If your work is judged by results, it doesn’t matter how many jobs you have.
Company Bullshit
IT culture is drowning in empty promises and lies from companies. A company is just a group of former candidates who overpromised clients and now hires someone to deliver for a fraction of the deal. Startups sell products before building them, and it’s considered as best practice.
When I get hired, they lie about “interesting tasks” and a “friendly team.” Later, we read that 80% of developers are unhappy or indifferent, and one in three actively hates their job. Yet if you lie on your CV, you’re the bad guy.
“You don’t know anything. The company is investing in your future.” That’s what they told me at my first job. Six months later, I outgrew the team and left. Why do companies only give raises once a year? "Because the system doesn't allow it earlier" is a terrible lie. The company created the system. The correct answer is: by underpaying employees, the company saves money. And money saved is just as good as money earned.
There are thousands of books about algorithms, but not one about lying in interviews. Yet both are needed to get a job. Nobody gave companies moral permission to lie - they just started doing it. The payer sets the rules. And by those rules, lying is a trump card.
I want you to have your own trump card when you go job hunting.
What to Do About Hiring
The idea is simple: if every developer studies the hiring system and uses lie to bypass it, eventually interviewing developer will understand interviewees’ tricks. Minus times minus equals plus, and the problem fixes itself.
For developers: watch how hiring works. To stay employable, go to one interview per month. I’m not afraid of losing my job - I know I can find another. To do that, you must learn how to pass interviews. Since they’re often random and formal, stay one step ahead. Learn to predict what they want to hear and share the absurdities of IT hiring. You’ll only master this through practice. You will find instructions in this video.
For companies: test your hiring process with your own people. In hiring, as in coding, you’re expected to use your brain, not to copy-paste from others. Can Bob from one department pass an interview for the same role in another? If not, your pipeline is broken.
IT grew faster than any other industry because we took time to understand problems. Don’t forget that habit.
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