(Stage 1) I was asked a series of hacker-like questions which were fun to answer, and I felt like the culture fit me perfectly at Auth0. I passed this stage. (Stage 2) I was asked to write an article on creating a Spring Boot application — I specifically told the interviewers that I had never used Java in my life and had no experience with the framework. They responded that they knew and there-in lay the whole test. It was weird to be given that answer and a week to submit my article. So, I learned Java and wrote a Spring Boot app. I stumbled through the entire task, documented it and sent in the article. It was rejected after a long wait for not describing Spring Boot's technical advantages over other frameworks, and because I could not elaborate on what the app was doing in certain sections. I wouldn't know, I hadn't ever used it before and lacked the experience to elaborate on what the boilerplate code was doing. I applied for a technical editorial job for a competitor publication afterward — when I write my articles now, I spend at least two weeks on each, and ensure that they're expertly crafted — and will be read by thousands (if not millions) of people.