slip

111 rejections shared here

Safer rejection retrospectives

Pseudonymous by default — no real names needed.
No interviewer, recruiter, or partner names.
Share the process, signals, and lessons — not rumors.

companies/amazon/new-grad•57d ago

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

Final Round

675

companies/microsoft/swe•60d ago

I found out I'm about to be laid off. How do people actually find jobs in 2026?

Resume Screen

525

companies/google/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Final Round

412

companies/datadog/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

387

companies/bytedance/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

364

companies/doordash/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

341

companies/palantir/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

318

companies/amazon/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

276

investors/yc/s25•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

255

companies/airbnb/swe•57d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

234

investors/a16z•62d ago

Funding

The investor scowled through our entire pitch, lectured us on CAC and LTV — I left convinced I had failed my co-founders

(speedrun.substack.com) ↗

Resume Screen

companies/palantir•62d ago

Made it through four rounds, hit task 3 of the Learning interview, then "no matching position"

Onsite

companies/google/swe•62d ago

Got strong hire on all rounds, HC rejected me anyway — Google loop post-mortem

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/netflix/swe•58d ago

Rejected from a senior IC role because I have managed before

📌 Reddit

Final Round

companies/amazon/swe•58d ago

Told my system design was weak — the one round I thought I crushed

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/notion/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/uber/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/netflix/swe•58d ago

Five months in, no return offer — did not meet the bar for a mid-level engineer

📌 Reddit

Final Round

companies/amazon/swe•58d ago

"Moving forward with other candidates" — recycled, not rejected

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/openai/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/stripe/swe•58d ago

Solved the problem and one follow-up — at Stripe that is not enough

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/google/swe•58d ago

No working code on the graph round, and communication flagged in Googlyness

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/shopify/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/microsoft/swe•58d ago

Got an informal offer at Microsoft Redmond, then a rejection — half the loop felt hostile

📌 Reddit

Final Round

companies/amazon/swe•58d ago

Passed every round I could see, rejected with no reason five days later

Onsite

companies/google/swe•58d ago

Overcomplicated a two-pointer problem and ignored the hint

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/linkedin/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/meta/swe•58d ago

Both coding rounds came back No Hire — and I genuinely thought one was a slam dunk

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/coinbase/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Phone Interview

companies/microsoft/swe•58d ago

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

Onsite

companies/databricks/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/stripe/swe•58d ago

New grad, solved 2 of 3 in time — and at Stripe 2 of 3 is a reject

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/ramp/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/brex/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Phone Interview

companies/google/swe•58d ago

Aced the DSA rounds, then answered ML questions like an engineer instead of a product person

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/google/swe•58d ago

Got the personalized "you passed our screen" email — then rejected on an eligibility rule

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/meta/swe•58d ago

My coding was fine. The behavioral rapid-fire is what actually sank me

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/amazon/swe•58d ago

Knew every single problem and still went completely blank on implementation

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/shopify/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

investors/yc•62d ago

Funding

Applied to YC W24 with five drafts and strong referrals — rejected, and it was still worth it

(sabinagal.com) ↗

Resume Screen

investors/yc/s25•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Resume Screen

companies/uber/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/github/swe•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

Final Round

companies/stripe/swe•58d ago

Made it to the Bug Squash round and got lost in a huge unfamiliar codebase

📌 Reddit

Onsite

companies/google/swe•58d ago

Four rounds, one No Hire on a graph problem, and that was the whole loop

📌 Reddit

Onsite

investors/yc•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

PRE_SEED✓ Started company

investors/yc•58d ago

YC W24 rejection: interviewed twice, no offer

📌 Reddit

PRE_SEED✓ Raised funding

investors/sequoia•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

PRE_SEED✓ Raised funding

investors/a16z•58d ago

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

📌 Reddit

SEED✓ Raised funding

companies/meta/swe•58d ago

Crushed the middle of the loop, then the surprise supplemental round buried me

Onsite