> I had been talking to the candidate for months and they had completed our entire interview panel. We’d had great conversations where I’d learned about their b

> I had been talking to the candidate for months and they had completed our entire interview panel. We’d had great conversations where I’d learned about their background and developed a sense for how they would fit in this role. Unfortunately, I had to tell them we would not be moving forward with an offer. "Hiring" isn't the emotional thing here. The emotional thing was knowing you were shitty to someone. You were shitty because you took months to build a relationship with this person and didn't have a compelling reason to say yes or no, and decided to say no. If you saw gaps, you should have said no sooner. If it takes you months of talking to someone and building a relationship to decide they're not right for the team, it's not hiring that's the problem, it's that you're bad at hiring that's the problem. There's exactly no reason to lead a candidate on for months. If you ever get to the point where scheduling a 1:1 zoom conversation is implied to be a job offer, you've fucked up. Interviewing isn't personal, it's business—until you've spent long hours making it personal. > Hiring is a roller coaster. It involves more ups and downs than normal engineering work. It might be a roller coaster, but the longest roller coaster by duration in the world is four minutes. Keep that in mind.