slip

111 rejections shared here

companies/amazon/new-grad•12d ago

Amazon SDE New Grad: 3 rounds, everything went well, rejection email on day 8

Final Round

675

companies/google/swe•12d ago

Three Strong Hires, made it to team matching, then the HC said no

Final Round

412

S

companies/datadog/swe•12d ago

The CoderPad exercise had two parts. Nobody told me. I solved one and got rejected.

Onsite

387

companies/bytedance/swe•12d ago

One shallow answer on big data tech and the data infrastructure loop ended that day

Onsite

364

companies/doordash/swe•12d ago

Recruiter called it after the system design round and canceled my remaining interviews

Onsite

341

companies/palantir/swe•12d ago

New grad: reached task 3 of the Learning round and got "no matching position"

Onsite

318

companies/apple/swe•12d ago

Passed all six rounds, talked comp, then they selected another candidate — and reposted the role next day

Final Round

297

companies/amazon/swe•12d ago

Three rounds, every interviewer seemed satisfied, and I still believed I had it

Onsite

276

investors/yc/s25•12d ago

Three profitable micro-SaaS as a solo founder. YC rejected me: no cofounder.

Resume Screen

255

companies/airbnb/swe•12d ago

Passed Airbnb coding and system design — sunk by a behavioral round I still disagree with

Onsite

234

companies/airbnb/swe•12d ago

Airbnb told me I did well, then went with someone else — the rounds were a black box

Onsite

213

companies/notion/swe•13d ago

No Hire after I defended my solution instead of exploring the interviewer hint

Onsite

36

companies/uber/swe•13d ago

Backend loop: nailed three coding rounds, then burned my LLD round talking instead of typing

Onsite

36

companies/palantir/swe•13d ago

Onsite day: passed the coding but did not flesh out the answer enough

Onsite

34

companies/openai/swe•13d ago

OA was multi-part and I did not finish the second section

Resume Screen

32

companies/notion/swe•13d ago

Six rounds of positive feedback, then a mystery rejection on the final UI exercise

Final Round

29

companies/figma/swe•13d ago

Two months and 8 hours of interviews at Figma — rejected on coding after three strong rounds

Onsite

28

companies/shopify/swe•13d ago

Shopify does not grade LeetCode — they grade whether your code is production-ready

Onsite

27

companies/bytedance/swe•13d ago

HR said regular technical — it was system design heavy and my LeetCode prep was useless

Onsite

26

companies/openai/swe•13d ago

Every onsite round felt easy. I got rejected anyway and have no idea what I would even fix.

Onsite

24

companies/linkedin/swe•13d ago

Ghosted for two weeks after 5 onsite rounds, had to beg a different recruiter for the rejection

Onsite

22

companies/coinbase/swe•13d ago

Thought I nailed the DSA phone screen — the next call never came

Phone Interview

20

companies/microsoft/swe•13d ago

I solved the coding problem at Microsoft but could not explain my own past project

Onsite

20

investors/yc/s25•13d ago

W25 rejection after 5 drafts and 6 weeks — even strong founder referrals did not save it

Resume Screen

18

companies/databricks/swe•13d ago

New grad loop ended on an OOD/LLD round I had no idea was Amazon-style

Onsite

18

companies/doordash/swe•13d ago

System design interview where the interviewer ate lunch the entire time

Onsite

17

companies/ramp/swe•13d ago

Coding interview delivered through Gmail while I navigated Calendar live on Zoom

Resume Screen

14

companies/brex/swe•13d ago

Solved every phone-screen problem in time, rejected with zero feedback at a non-LeetCode company

Phone Interview

13

companies/coinbase/swe•13d ago

New grad backend: ran out of time on the second extension and got cut

Onsite

13

companies/figma/swe•13d ago

Fun pair-programming round at Figma — but I did not finish part one

Onsite

10

companies/linkedin/swe•13d ago

Infrastructure SWE: passed every round, rejected for "slightly more experience" — felt like a template

Onsite

9

companies/openai/swe•13d ago

AI companies make you design the systems they actually run — my system design was not ready for that

Onsite

8

S

companies/github/swe•13d ago

Did really well on the Karat redo — they judged me on the first one anyway

Resume Screen

7

companies/shopify/swe•13d ago

Crushed Shopify coding challenge, finished 20 minutes early — and got cut at screening anyway

Resume Screen

7

investors/yc/s25•13d ago

First YC rejection (S25): four concrete lessons beat one vague disappointment

Resume Screen

6

companies/uber/swe•13d ago

Senior SWE: drew a clean Kafka pipeline, rejected for not defending the trade-offs deeply enough

Onsite

4

S

companies/github/swe•13d ago

Six rounds, six Hire ratings — the hiring committee said no anyway

Final Round

3

S

companies/datadog/swe•13d ago

Behavioral interviewer kept cutting me off. Tech interviewer quizzed a backend hire on frontend JS trivia.

Onsite

3

S

companies/datadog/swe•13d ago

Made it through the full onsite — one interviewer was not satisfied and that was the whole ballgame

Onsite

3

companies/shopify/swe•13d ago

Shopify called it a real-world implementation problem — it was DSA and I was not ready

Onsite

3

investors/yc•13d ago

YC S25: invited to interview, dropped out before it happened

PRE_SEED✓ Started company

1

investors/yc•13d ago

YC W24 rejection: interviewed twice, no offer

PRE_SEED✓ Raised funding

1

F

investors/founders-fund•13d ago

Founders Fund: 'we don't invest in software' — and they meant it

SERIES_A✓ Raised funding

1

F

investors/first-round•13d ago

First Round seed pass: "too early, come back at $100K MRR"

SEED✓ Raised funding

1

investors/benchmark•13d ago

Series A: Benchmark loved the market, passed on the team

SERIES_A✓ Raised funding

1

investors/sequoia•13d ago

Sequoia Arc application: strong feedback, no follow-up call

PRE_SEED✓ Raised funding

1

investors/a16z•13d ago

Seed pitch: got to term sheet stage, then the market comp killed it

SEED✓ Raised funding

1

investors/a16z•13d ago

Series A partner meeting went two hours — "not the right moment for us"

SERIES_A✓ Raised funding

1

companies/linkedin/swe•13d ago

Solved both coding problems in under an hour. Rejected. Then told I needed lots of hints.

Phone Interview

1

companies/databricks/swe•13d ago

Interviewers said I solved every problem correctly, then rejected me to improve technical skills

Onsite

0