If You See These Red Flags in an IT Interview — Run (Real Stories)

This list brings back some memories (and not the good kind 😅).

It is so easy to ignore these flags when you just really want the offer, but looking back, every time I ignored my gut feeling during an interview, I paid for it later.

We often forget that we are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing us. Thanks for validating that feeling!

Sylwia, what you describe doesn’t surprise me at all — and what’s striking is that your writing almost makes us wish you had even more examples to share… even though every single one of these experiences is awful.

I’ve definitely lived through similar situations — and honestly, who in tech hasn’t at some point?

I’ve had companies insist on an in-person first interview while I was ~700km away from Paris, others asking me to travel for on-site coding tests (including well-known companies) only to completely ghost afterward. One even made me wait an hour before the interview, then asked me to stay on site while they reviewed my code — which was apparently “perfect” — and still never followed up. When I finally chased them, they told me that no response meant my application wasn’t worth pursuing… only to call back two days later because their cheaper hire (someone I happened to know) wasn’t working out.

I’ve also been asked deeply inappropriate questions about my private life, religion, or sexual orientation. Experiences like these inevitably change how you approach interviews.

These days, I still listen to what companies propose — but I also set my own interview conditions and boundaries. If the process doesn’t respect my time or professionalism, I simply decline and move on. It has made the whole experience far healthier and much more balanced.

Horror stories about interviews just keep coming and each one seems way worse than the last.

I’ve been on both sides of the table: as an interviewee and as an interviewer. Honestly, I’m not even sure which role is more stressful.

Some people seem to think that being the interviewer means being “in charge.” I’ve always hated that mindset. An interview is not power, it’s a responsibility - a huge responsibility. You might change someone’s career trajectory in a good or absolutely worst way.

As an interviewer, I’ve even confronted colleagues in the past who treated candidates unfairly or wanted to reject them immediately for completely absurd reasons. That kind of behavior does real damage not just to candidates, but to the company’s culture and reputation.

Everyone should pause for a moment and imagine themselves in the candidate’s place. Interviews are vulnerable moments. Behind every CV is a real person who prepared, stressed, and showed up hoping for a fair chance.

Being an interviewer is far more complex than just asking questions. It requires empathy, professionalism, psychology and self-awareness.

When I was starting out as a junior developer with zero experience, I interviewed at a startup. They liked me and saw potential, but due to my lack of experience they hesistated. However it sounded very likely they were going to offer me some kind of internship. They continued to dangle this potential role for months on end before ghosting me. I learned the hard way to not rely on a single recruitment process but always have multiple processes ongoing to hedge your bets and not get emotionally attached to one single job application.

Some companies are searching for unicorns, which are known to be phantasy creatures, and non-existent in real life.

O Girl, this hit home. 😭

Last year, I had an interview where the CTO joined 20 minutes late, no apology, and said: 'Yeah, I was playing FIFA. So, tell me about yourself.'

I should have walked out then. But I didn't. Joined the company. Worst 6 months of my life.

Now my rule: How they treat you in the interview is how they'll treat you on the job.

Thanks for writing this — hope it saves someone! 🙏"

I really appreciate your kind words, Sylwia. Your description of those long, drawn-out interview processes and companies not treating candidates with respect really resonated with me. It's like you're speaking directly from my own experiences. Thank you for sharing your story and validating what I've been through - it's nice to know I'm not alone.

Thank you so much, Richard - that really means a lot 🙂

And yes, absolutely - articles and comments are honestly one of the best sources of inspiration for writing. One good post can send you down a whole chain of ideas and reflections. That’s usually how it starts for me too.

I also read your post today about taking a step back from DEV for a while. I totally understand that decision - sometimes you just need to rebalance and focus elsewhere. But just so you know, we’ll be here waiting for you whenever you feel like coming back 🙂

This hit home. One red flag I learned the hard way is when they can’t clearly explain the role or keep changing expectations in each round. I once went through 4 rounds and still didn’t know what I’d actually be building. I ignored that sign, joined, and it turned out exactly the same inside — constant confusion. Now I treat the interview process as a preview of the real job.

The tech interview topic is a big one, everyone who’s been through recruitment could talk about it for ages 🙂

Reading about the Total Surveillance Mode part was really interesting to me. I did a technical assignment with exactly the same settings (camera on all the time, fully recorded). At first I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to do the task, it felt a bit creepy 🙂 Can you imagine someone actually sitting there later and watching all those long, probably boring recordings of developers writing code? 😅 Sounds like a weird task to have, honestly 🙂

Also, a small tip for coding tasks on online platforms, maybe someone finds it useful: be careful with accidental infinite loops (like not providing a dependency array in useEffect in a React app). An accidental infinite loop can freeze the browser and you might lose time or even the whole session. Happened to me once 😅