They thought they got a free bug fix from a desperate job seeker. They forgot that without an employment contract, I still owned the copyright.
I’ve been a Senior Developer for ten years. I know the drill: coding challenges are part of the interview process. Usually, it’s something generic, like “build a To-Do list” or “sort this array.” But when I applied to a mid-sized e-commerce startup, “ShopSwift,” they sent me something different.
“We want to see how you handle real-world problems,” the CTO told me. “Your task is to optimize this specific module in our checkout flow. It’s currently lagging by 3 seconds. If you can fix it, the job is yours.”
The “Test”
I was hungry for the job. The salary was great, and the equity looked promising. I spent 20 hours over the weekend analyzing their minified code (which they provided). I found the issue: a nasty memory leak caused by redundant API calls in the payment gateway. I wrote a clean, elegant patch. I commented it beautifully. I even added unit tests. I submitted the code on Monday morning, feeling proud.
The Ghosting
Monday passed. Then Tuesday. On Wednesday, I emailed the recruiter. “Hey, just checking in on the submission?” No reply.
By Friday, I knew I had been ghosted. It happens. I was annoyed that I wasted a weekend, but I moved on. Two weeks later, my phone auto-updated my apps. I saw “ShopSwift” in the update queue. Version 4.2 Release Notes:
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Fixed critical checkout lag.
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Optimized payment gateway speed.
My stomach dropped.
The Smoking Gun
I downloaded the app. I pulled the source code (using some developer tools I won’t bore you with). I looked at the checkout module. There it was. My variable names. My commenting style. My specific logic structure. They hadn’t just used my solution; they had copy-pasted my code, verbatim, into their production app.
They had tricked me into fixing their biggest bug for free, then ghosted me so they didn’t have to pay a salary.
The Legal Loophole
I was furious. I wanted to blast them on LinkedIn. But then I remembered something from a contract law seminar. I was never an employee. I never signed a “Work for Hire” agreement. I never signed over my Intellectual Property rights. In the eyes of the law, I owned that code. And they were using it without a license.
The Nuclear Option
I didn’t email the CTO. I went straight to the landlord. I filed a formal DMCA Takedown Notice with the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.
The Claim: Copyright Infringement. The Evidence: My original GitHub commit timestamps vs. their app update timestamp. A side-by-side code comparison.
Apple takes copyright very seriously. 24 hours later, the ShopSwift app disappeared from the App Store.
The Panic
For an e-commerce company, being off the App Store is a death sentence. They lose thousands of dollars an hour. My phone rang at 9:00 AM on a Sunday. It was the CEO of ShopSwift. “There must be a misunderstanding!” he shouted. “Why did you take down our app?”
“You’re using my stolen property,” I said calmly. “I wrote that code. You didn’t hire me, and you didn’t pay me. Therefore, you have no right to use it.”
“We were going to hire you! It was just a delay in HR!” he lied.
“That’s funny,” I said. “Because the rejection email I just received an hour ago says you ‘went in another direction.'” (I assume the automated system finally caught up).
The Settlement
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice breaking. “We are losing $10,000 a day.”
“I want a consulting fee,” I said. “For the freelance work I performed.” “Fine. Send me an invoice for your hourly rate.”
“No,” I corrected him. “This isn’t an hourly rate. This is a licensing fee for critical infrastructure. The price is $15,000. Wired today. Or the DMCA notice stays, and your app stays down.”
The Aftermath
The wire transfer hit my account two hours later. I emailed Apple and withdrew the claim. Their app was back up by Tuesday. They got their bug fix. I got paid $15,000 for a weekend of work. I ultimately took a job with their biggest competitor. During my first week, I made sure to tell my new boss exactly why ShopSwift’s app was down that weekend. We had a good laugh.
Lesson Learned: Never write production code for an interview. And if you do, keep the receipts.
