Second Job Interview 2026: Unicorn of a Company and an Emotional Rollercoaster
Mon Jul 13 2026 (E: 2026 Jul 16)
View 27 attached note(s).- I applied for the job in early June 2026.
- I had applied to the same posting from the same company in February earlier this year but did not get a response then.
- This time, with minimal changes to my resume, I got a call back.
On the Tuesday following my job application, I got a call from the company while I was driving. Good thing I didn’t crash because I felt as though I had found a unicorn of a company:
- A human had actually called me.
- Their flagship software is neither data mining or adware and is instead specialized production software for architecture, engineering, and construction projects.
- They’re about 7 miles away from where I live, so I couldn’t have asked for a better commute besides remote work.
I answered some straightforward screening questions then went to their office on Wednesday to do their “programming assessment test”. I met face-to-face my first point of contact: some dude who was not actually HR but the network programmer who sometimes does HR stuff because “the company used to outsource HR but got fed up with recruiters”.
+2 to the number of ways this company was a unicorn.
I found the test was less about programming or anything that the job posting had hinted at and more of a linear algebra pop quiz.
I also had to sign an NDA, which was specifically for the test questions because the company had problems with cheaters. But it was a double-sided piece of paper with legal language, so I should ask for a copy of it sometime.
“Don’t worry about scoring badly. We’ve hired people who’ve only scored 20 on it before!” said Network Programmer.
I asked the dude to grade me, and for the question related to scheduling, I got it entirely correct “like a straight textbook answer”. But for the linear algebra parts, he brought in the graphics programmer to finish grading.
I gave stupid answers on some questions. In most cases, unless I was
programming custom graphics on a microcontroller, I can invoke
functions like A.cross(B), and a compiler|interpreter
would complain if I was doing something wrong related to the
definitions. Pleasant surprise was that I still correctly listed uses,
and I made a fair attempt at “the question no one ever got right
before”.
Graphics Guy: Yes, that is one way you could do that. There is another physics-based approach. But with your answer, the next step would be…1
Graphics Guy told me I scored around 40 pts when the average had been 30 then gave me an interview on the spot. The cool thing about the dude was that he recognized Quake Engine and BSP file formats. If I got into the company, I could probably convince him to a game on Aerowalk2 or Darkzone.3
This visit concluded with them telling me that the next step is the second interview with the CEO, who has the final say on hiring. However, the CEO is out of town and won’t be back until next week.
For the next two weeks I kept thinking of the ways my life could change for the better:
- I’ve been hit (not-at-fault) 2 times while commuting up and down the I-15, and would have to deal with less of that driving in-town entirely.
- finally getting a foot in the door for career I had invested time and effort into getting
- the things I could be doing with better income, like wellbeing.
But this Monday, I got a message saying some candidates scored higher on the test, so I won’t be getting that second interview.
So shucks. If anything, the chart from LayerOne gets an update:
| Sex of Reviewer | Prefers Relevant Exp. foremost | Prefers current job foremost | Neutral |
|---|---|---|---|
| Male | 3 (+2) | 0 | 1 |
| Female | 0 | 2 | 1 |
(The sample size is indeed small, but so far has predicted preference.)
The Graphics Guy had a clear expression of disinterest when I attempted to describe my current job in a way that makes sense to computer scientists, at least before my sentence included the word ‘integral’. Literally, his face was the emoticons:
(My sentence includes ‘mass spectrometer’.)
=_=
(Then I say the word ‘integral’.)
o_o!
I do have to wonder if I would have gotten the job before a new applicant scored higher than me had there not been internal delays (return trip, “all hands on deck for an urgent patch”). Or if they refreshed their job posting now as they appeared to have done since February because the current pool of applicants was unsatisfactory. It was still nice that instead of getting ghosted, I was notified of my rejection.
unicorn++;
To make it up to myself, I might have to push out some demo code for LayerOne 2027.
“I didn’t get a C++ programming job, but I did write a sick demo on some middle ground between a Gameboy and a Nintendo DS. OpenGL or Eigen not available.”
