“We Don’t Use Your Code Anymore”
I left a job a few years ago.
No drama. No burning bridges. Just one of those polite, corporate separations where everyone pretends this was a mutual decision even though it obviously wasn’t. For the record it was my decision, and I secured a position with a 40% raise.
Fast-forward to recently. I was finding life at a new job difficult (I thought I was going to fail probation), so I reapplied to my old company. It wasn’t a great idea, and I didn’t get the job (thankfully, IMHO).
Fine. Rejection is basically a rite of passage in tech. However some of the things said to me in the interview were chef’s kiss:
“You’re not technically strong enough, and you haven’t progressed much since you left”
Ouch. Because I didn’t completely rewrite the technical project. Because after some years they were using the same project for interviews.
Then came the real kicker. During conversation I spoke about my contribution
“We don’t use your code anymore”
That line wasn’t required, and was an unnecessary ouchie. They could have simply stopped the interview as I wasn’t suitable. That would hurt less.
The Awkward Part
Here’s the thing.
I know my code is still in use at their place.
It’s in their app.
It’s in production.
Same structure. Same patterns. Same logic. It’s in the structure of how their software and business works. It’s like saying to a musician who left a band that they didn’t contribute anything. If I didn’t contribute, it didn’t make an impact why didn’t they fire me? How did I get a massive pay bump?
But sure. They don’t use my code anymore.
Amnesia Is a Feature, Not a Bug
Companies love rewriting history.
Once you leave, especially if you leave before you were supposed to, your contributions slowly evaporate:
The feature you built becomes “the system”
The architecture you introduced becomes “how it’s always been”
Your code becomes… no one’s code
Acknowledging that rejected candidates wrote solid, long-lived code would create a problem:
If the code is good…
And the code is still there…
Then maybe the rejection wasn’t about technical ability at all.
And we absolutely can’t have that.
Interviews Measure Performance, Not Value
This is the dirty secret of software interviews:
They don’t measure whether you can do the job.
They measure whether you can perform in that moment.
Whiteboard calmness.
Algorithm trivia recall.
Confidence under artificial pressure.
None of those things determine whether your code survives in production for years.
Yet somehow, the interview verdict overrides observable reality.
Your code running in their product?
Irrelevant.
You hesitating for 30 seconds on a theoretical problem?
Disqualifying.
The Real Answer
Here’s my takeaway, and maybe it’s useful if you’ve been in a similar situation:
Interviews are opinions
Production code is evidence
If something you wrote years ago is still in use, still maintained, still relied upon that says something more than even a reference can say.
Code moves on slowly.
And sometimes, that’s the most honest performance review you’ll ever get.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper.
The Secret Developer once wrote code so bad it’s still in production years later. Apparently no one has figured out how to remove it yet.