At first, I was given a "code challenge" that was said to take 4–6 hours. In reality, it took 4–6 hours of every day of an entire week. I was massively stressed out the entire time, and exhausted by the end of it. The next phase was the "trial," where I was paid $25 per hour to work on a similar, but much more complex project using React and Redux in a WordPress plugin. This part was even worse, because the app is a very complex stack of intermingled libraries and frameworks. I was very lost from the outset and I didn't even know where to start. I was assured that the trial was largely about seeing how a person thinks and communicates. But despite repeated questions, requests for help, and detailed summaries of what I'd tried so far, I couldn't get anything at all helpful from my trial lead (who also told me not to ask anybody else). I'm a very good JavaScript developer, and I didn't need my hand held; I just needed a little guidance navigating a maze of deeply unfamiliar technologies. The job posting really should've been for a React/Redux dev, not a JavaScript dev, if throwing candidate into water that deep without help was the plan. I spent hours just trying things, trying to make sense of it all, reading documentation, trying to find where to even start, and kept asking detailed questions. But the answer was always (paraphrasing): "figure it out." It became clear this trial they said would take maybe 20–30 hours would actually be, as before, several times the estimate, as I got nearly halfway to that mark with no real progress to show for it. I felt like a rat in a maze the entire time. The people I talked to were all extremely nice and seemed like they'd be wonderfully supportive coworkers. But I still felt like a test subject, or the victim of a hazing initiation, being watched to see what clues I'd miss and what traps I'd walk into. Knowing I was under constant evaluation as I tried to figure out what was broken on purpose just to trip me up compounded the anxiety of it all. The threat of burnout looming, feeling the negative impacts on my personal life already, I decided this couldn't possibly be worth it, and I dropped out. (It should be noted: they were very kind about that decision.) In fairness, they are very clear that they don't care how long the trial takes you, but that isn't really the point to me. If you ask me for a million dollars, it doesn't matter how long you give me to pay it off; the problem is you're just asking more than I have to give. The entire process felt, frankly, inhumane, and wildly inequitable. Hopefully the trial is a poor approximation of what it's actually like to work there, because I can't imagine any company would deny a new employee help (let alone throw a new team member in the middle of a project with no guidance or explanation). The whole experience made me pretty worried about what the culture must actually be like. At absolute best, they definitely don't simulate a healthy working environment in the trial. I lost sleep; I missed out on events with my child (how you could ask this of a parent with a full-time job seems extremely un-inclusive to me); I had to ask my partner to cover for me on so many occasions that even they started burning out; I battled anxiety. Brief moments aside, it was miserable the entire time. I talked to a handful of employees in various departments during my trial; every single one of them, without exception, said their trial was a miserable experience, too (most mentioned crying during it), and much harder than their actual job is—which makes the trial seem even more like a hazing ritual. Short of being desperate for employment (and it seems like you'd HAVE to be unemployed to have the time), I can't imagine willingly getting through this. It's not even about the money (though it was not good). I didn't need the pay. I needed my life and my mental health and time with my family; I needed to not have so much on top of my full-time job that the burnout is even extending to my family members who are forced to pick up the slack for me. I needed to not feel the stress of extra work looming over me every moment of my free time, as I wondered whether I should be putting more hours into the trial—and if I did, whether it would even be worth it. I just keep looking back and thinking, how could any good company ask THIS much of people, under ANY circumstance, but ESPECIALLY for potentially nothing in return. I put nearly a full-time workweek into JUST the unpaid code challenge. How can a company ask that!? Automattic: I wish you realized that you demand far, far too much. Please, for the sake of every one of your candidates—as well as for your the company's own sake, knowing how many exceptional people you must be missing out on and alienating with these unfair obstacles—find a healthier way to screen people. Because this is flagrantly inequitable and honestly, borderline abusive.