Decision: Shadow Application (January 2022)
Shadow is a cloud gaming company (PC streaming). Steven applied in late December 2021 and received the final rejection in early January 2022. The recruitment spanned at least five stages and took approximately two weeks.
The process
- Technical test submission (iOS app), submitted late and nearly disqualifying him, but Thomas still validated it
- Technical review call with Thomas, the lead iOS engineer, which validated and praised the app
- Notification that two other candidates remained and the CTO would decide, which caused an anxiety spike
- Entretien humain with Brice, the CTO, in which Brice asked questions that drew out Steven’s opinions on role scenarios and Steven felt aligned with the company vision
- HR call with Hédi, which Steven described as going well and from which he took reassuring signals
- Rejection: “Ils m’ont finalement annoncé qu’ils préféraient prendre quelqu’un d’autre et que je pouvais aller gentiment me faire foutre.”
Why it hit differently
Several factors compounded:
Single-company commitment: Steven describes always applying to only one company at a time, fully committing to “le projet de vie potentiel” with that specific company. Shadow was not one among several applications. It was the application. Rejection carried the weight of an entire imagined future.
Timing: New Year 2022. He invested the new year with significant symbolic weight. This was the year he intended to rebuild a sustainable life. The rejection arrived at the moment of maximum hope.
Five-stage investment: He had passed every stage. The CTO interview had gone well by all available signals. Hédi’s reassurance had reduced his anxiety. When the rejection came, it could not be attributed to a bad performance. He had performed well throughout. That made it harder to metabolize, not easier.
Post-ESN context: He had already been fired from the ESN job. Shadow was the planned recovery. One failure after another.
The aftermath
He wrote: “Ça m’a beaucoup atteint.” Then continued a few months in the after-party and personal-projects life, living on savings and his mother’s transfers, hiding his unemployment from her.
The Shadow rejection marks the end of the post-Arthur recovery attempt and the beginning of the 2022 to 2023 collapse arc.
Pattern significance
The single-application strategy is a consistent feature of Steven’s professional history. He applied to Ipso for its fit and Shadow on its own, each time treating the process as a total commitment. This maximizes the emotional stakes of each rejection and prevents the risk distribution that comes from parallel applications. It is consistent with intense singular focus and with his general tendency to treat each situation as a complete project rather than one option among many.