Hiring without feedback is broken
I pass every screening call. I answer every technical question. Then I get rejected — and nobody tells me why. The pattern is always the same. Screening goes well — experience aligns, good conversation, we move forward. Technical round — databases, architecture, system design. Nothing that makes me pause. I answer everything. Then — a week of silence. And either a polite "we went with someone closer to our stack," or nothing at all. You can't debug a process that returns no error message. <!-- excerpt --> ## The strange part The technical questions rarely have anything to do with the actual position. Generic architecture topics. Surface-level database questions. Nothing that tests how I'd solve their specific problems or work with their stack. It feels like many interviewers don't have a plan. No rubric, no structure — just a conversation with some technical vocabulary sprinkled in. And if the questions don't meaningfully filter candidates by skill, then what are they actually filtering by? I think a lot of technical interviews are cultural fit assessments disguised as technical ones. The questions are easy enough that most experienced engineers will answer them. The real evaluation is happening somewhere else — tone, energy, how you communicate. But nobody says that out loud. ## Why it matters If that's what you're evaluating — own it. Call it a culture interview. Set expectations. Let candidates show up as themselves instead of preparing for a technical deep dive that never comes. Because right now, you're rejecting people and they have no idea what they got wrong. Not because the feedback is missing — but because the criteria were never on the table. That's not a hiring process. That's a guessing game.
I pass every screening call. I answer every technical question. Then I get rejected — and nobody tells me why.
The pattern is always the same. Screening goes well — experience aligns, good conversation, we move forward. Technical round — databases, architecture, system design. Nothing that makes me pause. I answer everything.
Then — a week of silence. And either a polite “we went with someone closer to our stack,” or nothing at all.
You can’t debug a process that returns no error message.
The strange part
Section titled “The strange part”The technical questions rarely have anything to do with the actual position. Generic architecture topics. Surface-level database questions. Nothing that tests how I’d solve their specific problems or work with their stack.
It feels like many interviewers don’t have a plan. No rubric, no structure — just a conversation with some technical vocabulary sprinkled in. And if the questions don’t meaningfully filter candidates by skill, then what are they actually filtering by?
I think a lot of technical interviews are cultural fit assessments disguised as technical ones. The questions are easy enough that most experienced engineers will answer them. The real evaluation is happening somewhere else — tone, energy, how you communicate. But nobody says that out loud.
Why it matters
Section titled “Why it matters”If that’s what you’re evaluating — own it. Call it a culture interview. Set expectations. Let candidates show up as themselves instead of preparing for a technical deep dive that never comes.
Because right now, you’re rejecting people and they have no idea what they got wrong. Not because the feedback is missing — but because the criteria were never on the table.
That’s not a hiring process. That’s a guessing game.