I Got Rejected from every FAANG — Here are the Rejection Emails.

Sebastian Carlos
4 min readMay 20, 2022

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Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Email 1: Google

Hello Sebastian Carlos,

Thank you for your application to our company.

We are ok with you using Bing in your personal life, but there was no need to bring it up so many times during your interview.

Also, we do not think that “The Matrix is real and we are all living in it” is an acceptable belief to have as one of our software engineers.

We have decided to go with another candidate for this position.

Thank you for your time,
Google HR

Email 2: Amazon

Dear Sebastian,

We regret to inform you that you have not been selected for the position of Software Engineer.

However, we would like to offer you a position as one of our Amazon Fresh drivers.

Thank you,
Amazon HR

Email 3: Meta

Dear Mr. Carlos,

Thanks for applying.

We sincerely appreciate your understanding of the nature of reality which, as you mentioned, is demonstrated by the 1999 film “The Matrix.”

However, you didn’t seem entirely convinced that humanity’s best course of action is to build a matrix within a matrix.

Vis a vis, we regret to inform you that we will not move forward with the interview process.

As a token of appreciation, we give you 10,000 Metacoins, redeemable in any Ministry of Plenty within the metaverse.

Have a lovely <time of day>,
Facebook HR
(We are still updating our HTML email signatures, sorry for the inconvenience)

Email 4: Apple

Dear supreme wizard,

Our team was absolutely delighted to meet you.

The energy released during our meeting was so massive that we had to quarantine one-half of the Apple Park. Our priests are still conjuring protecting spells at the ever-expanding void.

No one ever rated so high on our aptitude test. Your synchronization rate reached infinity.

Our MRA scan confirms that you contacted the entity that Steve Jobs saw all those years ago. Right after a second lasted a hundred years, right after hearing the celestial trumpet play the unanswered question, right after peaking through the curtain of reality. There it was, the Apple logo, in space gray. The gray was so gray that it burned.

Even though we feel that you are the chosen one, we have decided to go with another candidate.

Granted, Steve Jobs would have hired you on the spot. But we feel that any person that has seen the apple that shall not be named beyond time and space poses a risk to the holy designs of Tim Cook.

Warmest wishes,
Apple HR

Email 5: Netflix

Sebastian,

Welcome to Netflix!

We are excited to have you on board as our new Software Engineer.

We love your passion, and we believe that your skills will be a valuable asset to our team.

We look forward to seeing great things from you in the future.

Sincerely,
Netflix HR

Of course, I had to reject the last one. I only applied as a joke. No one wants to work at Netflix.

So, what went wrong? Is it FAANG, or is it me? Despite popular opinion, there are other companies to work as a programmer. Unfortunately, my results were very similar.

Bonus Email: Ecosia

Dear Mr. Carlos,

We appreciate your pitch to migrate every single data structure to trees.

Our business indeed revolves around reforestation, but we have decided to go with a more traditional RDBMS for our data storage needs.

It is with a sad heart that we must inform you that we will not be able to offer you the position of Lead Architect.

We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
The Ecosia Team

Who did it best? Let me know in the comments. I think the Amazon rejection email was actually quite nice and generous. I might even apply to be a truck driver.

I could also apply to Microsoft, but they are making some questionable products these days:

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Sebastian Carlos
Sebastian Carlos

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