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Pune techie flags interview ordeal after being asked to write complex code from scratch on screen
A Pune techie recalled being told to write complex code live on screen during an interview.
A Pune based tech professional has triggered a wider discussion on hiring practices in the technology sector after sharing details of what he described as an unusually demanding interview experience. The post, shared on X, has resonated with several users who questioned whether modern interviews prioritise memorisation over practical skills.
Asked to write CI CD pipeline without documentation
Taking to X, the user, identified as Nandkishor, said the interview began on a routine note before taking an unexpected turn. He wrote, "Had a really unexpected interview experience today.After intro and responsibilities, they asked me to share screen and write a complete GitHub Actions CI CD workflow end to end without referring any documentation and with zero syntax errors."
Nandkishor added that he attempted to explain the complete production flow during the interview. He detailed how he walked the interviewer through branch strategy, checkout, build process, code scan, image scan, pushing to ECR and updating the manifest for Argo CD. Despite this, he said the explanation was not considered sufficient. "Still, that wasn’t enough," he wrote.
Questions over real world engineering expectations
In a follow up post, Nandkishor questioned whether such expectations reflected real workplace practices. "Honestly asking who writes CI CD pipelines, Kubernetes manifests, or Jenkinsfiles from scratch without docs? Even in Terraform for AWS has 200 plus services. Are we expected to mug up every syntax?" he wrote.
He further argued that practical engineering was being misunderstood in interviews. "In real projects, good engineers design systems, understand flows, and refer docs not memorise YAML. Seniors and hiring managers is this normal, or are we confusing memorisation with real DevOps skills?" he asked.
Take a look here at the post:
Post draws reactions
The post quickly attracted reactions from other users, many of whom echoed similar frustrations. One user commented, "Great bro for the patience you had during the interview," praising Nandkishor for staying composed. Another wrote, "Obviously not, seems the interviewer already made up his mind for a reject."
Some responses were more critical of the interviewer’s approach. One user said, "Seems interviewer was typical manager," while another remarked, "Most people these days interview to reject rather than to hire." A separate comment stated, "This is just idiotic."
Curiosity around the company also surfaced in the discussion. One user asked, "Was this MNC?" to which Nandkishor replied, "No, it's a Bengaluru base start up."
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
