Many of us have had conversations on social media that we remember for a long time. But for Walnut CEO Roshan Patel, the brutally honest reply he received from a software engineer during an interview has stayed with him for almost two years. Mr Patel had received a pre-seed funding for his start-up in 2021 and was looking to hire people for his company. He shortlisted one software engineer and decided to check it she would be interested in working for Walnut.
"I run a startup increasing access to healthcare by making it more affordable. We just raised a pre-seed round and are looking to hire talented engineers. Any interest in chatting?" he asked her, according to the screenshot posted by Mr Patel on Twitter on Wednesday.
But the interview was cut short because of the engineer's straightforward response.
"Hi Roshan, I just checked on Crunchbase and my current salary is more than your entire pre-seed round," she replied.
"Still thinking about this exchange almost 2 years later," he wrote in his tweet posted on April 26.
The tweet has received more than three million views and over 24,000 likes. Twitter users were amused by the software engineer's response.
"Amazing that people put money before purposeful work. Also, Dear software engineers (making way too much money) - meet AI," commented one user.
"Could have gone with "Hey, I'll have to pass on this opportunity as of now Roshan, but would love to be in touch." But she went T'her'e," said another.
Some users, however, came out in the engineer's defence.
"Gotta say, it's a weird decision to shame someone who's confident and established because she didn't respond to your generic message," said a user.
Walnut is based in New York and according to Crunchbase, it had raised $3.6 million in April 2021.
