Two round of initial calls with the recruiter and a Technical manager. Take home assignment of a End to End Chat application, with a specific Stack requirement that must be done under 6 hours. I had been approached by recruiters from Legora once or twice before and had declined. This time I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and move forward. The process started with two rounds: one with the recruiter and one with a Technical Manager. Both conversations were quite intense rather than friendly. During the interviews they were very upfront that the company moves at a “high speed” and that coming into the office every day is expected. The take-home assignment was a full end-to-end real-time messaging app (auth, JWT, GraphQL subscriptions, WebSocket support, and tests) with a mandated specific tech stack and a hard “maximum 6 hours” limit. I completed and submitted the assignment on time. The rejection feedback was that my solution was “too verbose,” even citing GraphQL — the exact technology they required. The feedback felt very high-level and not actionable at all. Overall, the experience left me with the clear impression that Legora is not looking for strong engineers, but rather for people who are already perfect in every aspect of their extremely demanding requirements. Combined with the emphasis on high-speed delivery and daily office presence, it became obvious this is a high-pressure, overwork culture with questionable work-life balance. Pros: Transparent about the company’s current stage and expectations Cons: Interviewers were intense and high-pressure rather than personable Take-home scope was unrealistic for the stated “6 hours max” Post-rejection feedback was vague and unhelpful Strong signals of an overworking culture with mandatory daily office attendance If you’re considering interviewing here, just know that even a solid, on-time submission may not be enough. They appear to have very unrealistic standards for candidates so Glassdoor comments I see is true.

Everything was fine until I met the CTO. He walked in wearing a YC t-shirt, yawning, barely present then proceeded to use a live production issue as his interview question, taking notes while I solved it. It became clear quickly: he wasn’t evaluating me. He was getting free consulting. I didn’t undersell my approach. I gave him exactly what he needed. The rejection letter said I wasn’t “a good fit for a startup of his kind.” Fair enough, I saw his kind the moment he glanced past me on my way out the door. No acknowledgment. Nothing. You can have the funding. You can have the YC badge. But you can’t buy the basic decency to look someone in the eye after they just solved your problem for free. I wouldn’t have taken the role anyway.