A Reddit user's account of a job interview that ended in a heated exchange with a company founder has caught the attention of many online. What started as a routine hiring process for a senior product marketing role gradually turned into accusations, legal warnings and a lengthy email thread.
In the post, the Reddit user described it as "the weirdest interview I've experienced in 12 years of working", adding that they needed to "vent" after the incident.
How the interview took an unexpected turn
According to the post, one of the company's co founders first reached out on LinkedIn regarding a Senior PMM role. The candidate explained that they were only casually exploring opportunities and had a two month notice period, while the company was looking for someone who could join within 15 days. Although the role initially seemed unlikely to work out, the founders later decided to continue with the interview process.
After two interview rounds, the candidate was asked to complete a take home assignment. Instead of preparing a traditional presentation, they built an interactive website featuring a detailed go to market analysis of the company. After submitting it, they waited 10 days without receiving any feedback.
While waiting, the candidate continued interviewing elsewhere and spoke to several founders who discussed similar business challenges. Those conversations led to a separate business idea, which they put together in a proposal and shared with multiple founders, including the company they had interviewed with. They clarified that it was only a thought experiment to explore whether the idea had potential.
When the founders later invited the candidate for another discussion, they briefly presented the proposal after talking through the assignment. According to the post, the atmosphere changed after they mentioned the idea had come from conversations with several founders.
The candidate claimed one founder told them to "go work for the Americans if they are paying you more" and later accused them of "moonlighting". Although they explained that they had no intention of building the idea while working full time, the interview ended abruptly.
The following morning, the candidate received an email accusing them of being "very sly and dishonest" and ending with the words, "Please don't contact me again."
The Reddit user replied once, explaining that the proposal had been shared before the meeting and that the founders had invited them back after receiving it. However, they claimed more emails followed, discussing hypothetical legal and ethical issues.
Summing up the experience, the candidate wrote, "I've genuinely never had a founder take a rejection this personally," adding that they believed they had simply "stumbled into the strangest interview process" of their career.
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Reddit users back the candidate
Many Reddit users felt the candidate had done nothing wrong and criticised the founder's response.
One person wrote, "Nah, you didn't do anything wrong. The founder just had a full ego meltdown because he wanted ownership of your brain for free. Sending a clearly marked idea deck is normal. His reaction isn't."
Another commented, "That's not you being sly. That's basic due diligence catching two people who don't talk to each other before sending accusatory emails."
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A third user remarked, "Going into business with a lawyer is like going for a swim with a shark."
Another added, "You dodged a 10 megaton attention seeking missile. The fact that you shared the idea with other founders clearly offended him."