How I Was Deceived When I Was a Junior Developer

Long ago, in an era when every junior could find a job and get an offer without much effort, I encountered situations that forced me to face the reality of the modern industry. It was a time when crowds were eager to enter the world of programming, but not everyone understood what to prepare for.

1. A call from HR. It went successfully, and then I was invited for an interview. At the interview, there was a certain owner of the company named Elizar Viktorovich. However, he didn't ask any technical development questions but immediately started talking about the future job. It was strange; by that time, I had already had several real but unsuccessful interviews.

   
   

   Later, I googled this Elizar and saw a huge number of angry reviews from juniors on all open platforms stating that Elizar assigns tasks from freelancers but does not pay salary during the probation period, and after the probation period, he disappears.

   
   

2. I did a test assignment for free, and the employer disappeared. The motives are really unknown. The task was simple but strange - to make a regular mobile application that reads data from JSON and shows a list of cards. The strangeness was that there were extra spaces and some letters from the Latin alphabet were replaced with Cyrillic :/; things that generally do not occur in practice.

   
   

   Honestly, it's not very clear what this test assignment is checking. I sent the task, but the employer didn't even read my messages. TWO months later, he replied: "We liked your test assignment; we will contact you for an interview." And then he disappeared...

   
   

3. Another episode: a random call from a man from my city claiming that he was ready to hire me for a job from an ad I posted on hh.ru. He offered a salary in an envelope of 45 thousand rubles. When I refused, he started to criticize me and claimed that I was a fool who didn't understand what kind of opportunity it was. Doubts prevented me from accepting such a job offer.

Today, when the market is flooded with juniors, deception and shady schemes have become commonplace. The recommendation I can give is that no reputable company will offer a job to a developer without a thorough technical interview. If something is offered without this, you should think about hidden pitfalls.

The reality of the IT industry has changed, and now, it's important to be vigilant and ready for surprises. I hope my experience will help others avoid such pitfalls and make the right decisions on their way to a career in IT.

What strange or unusual requests or tasks have you ever received during interviews or completing test assignments for work in the IT field?