My (somewhat charitable) interpretation was that either:

- The position had already been filled and they didn't want to bother fully informing me

- Both my contact and the person who "reviewed" my submission just really didn't care at all about the process and/or felt their time was better spent writing code than doing hiring (both people were technical)

For what it's worth, this was actually the second time I'd interviewed at this company, and the first time - while I didn't get the job - I went all the way through to the final interview and everyone I met was perfectly reasonable and nice.

Just reinforces the point from the article: an enormous factor in these processes is what kind of person you happen to be randomly assigned to on the other side. So don't take the results too seriously.

To be honest I never understood this logic. Clearly a firm's skill at interviewing might diverge from their ability to mentor, innovate, have a great engineering culture and so on? Sure - perhaps it's slightly less likely, but it's not at all obvious that interviewing skill and company excellence are 100% convergent.

Yes, its a blessing in disguise to fail the interview at such a company, but it is kafqaesque, infuriating and leaves a bad taste. But I agree that’s the best way to think about it.

To look at another way, you would immediately be the domain expert and go-to person!