I need to vent. I genuinely need to get this off my chest because I'm exhausted and honestly a little broken right now.

I recently went through 5 rounds (4 technical 1 director) of interviews at Addepar for a Senior Frontend Engineer role. Five. Rounds. I gave it everything — prep, time, energy, mental bandwidth. Each round went well enough that they kept calling me back. The feedback after every single round? Positive. "Moving ahead." No red flags, no concerns raised, nothing that even hinted I wasn't good enough.

And then after the final round, the recruiter sends me a message that basically says: "We have decided not to go ahead. The bar does not meet with our expectations."

That's it. That's the whole message.

No specifics. No constructive feedback. No explanation of where exactly I fell short. Just — "the bar." After FIVE rounds of interviews where apparently the bar was just fine enough to keep me going round after round. How does that even make sense? If my profile or skills weren't meeting the bar for a Senior Frontend role, why did I make it past round 1? Round 2? Round 3? Round 4?!

I have 9 years of experience in Frontend development. I'm not a fresher trying to figure things out. I've built things, shipped things, led things. I came prepared for every single round at Addepar. And yet here I am, sitting with a rejection that gives me absolutely nothing to work with — no feedback, no direction, nothing.

What makes it worse is that this isn't the first time this has happened to me. This is the third time I've been through multiple rounds, invested weeks of effort, and then got rejected at the very last stage with zero real reasoning:

• Addepar — rejected after 5 rounds for Senior Frontend Engineer
• • NetCoreCloud — recruiter said send me documents for offer then rejected not to going ahead.
• • A company in Dubai — same story
    It's been more than 3 months of this job search. Three months of grinding system design, frontend deep-dives, behavioral rounds — everything. Three months of picking yourself back up after every rejection, keeping the energy alive, telling yourself "next one." Three months of that wearing you down slowly.

I'm not writing this to just trash Addepar. I'm writing this because the way companies treat candidates — especially at the final stage — is genuinely broken. You owe people feedback. You owe them basic respect. Five rounds of someone's time, energy, and emotional investment deserves more than a two-line rejection with empty corporate buzzwords like "bar not met."

Tell me WHAT part of the bar. Tell me WHERE I fell short. Give me something I can actually grow from. Is that really too much to ask?

To anyone else going through this right now — you're not alone. It's brutal out there, especially at the senior level where the expectations are high and the feedback is somehow even lower. But we keep going.

And to companies doing this: do better. Seriously.