Let’s imagine we are in an alternative reality. Yes, yes, I know. After covid, wars, and natural disasters, the last few years already feel like a strange spin off compared to 2018. But stay with me. I want to imagine something nicer. Something calm. Somewhere in our timeline, hiring took a different turn. A better one. A place with no HR. Let’s call it Dev Heaven.

So how do developers find a new job in Dev Heaven? I thought about this a lot, mostly after wasting way too many hours in our current reality. Right now, if you are a developer, you send your CV into the void. You scroll LinkedIn. You talk to headhunters. You join calls that could have been emails. You do technical tests. You do more technical tests. And at the end, you either hear that you are not needed anymore or you hear nothing at all. You get ghosted like a bad date. Time lost. Motivation lost. Interest gone. Not cool.

In Dev Heaven, we flip the table. We still have calls, of course. But now developers are the ones in control. You talk directly with the team lead or another developer. You ask them technical questions. You ask how they write code, how they review it, and how their daily work actually looks. You might even give them a small problem to solve, just to see how they think. Fair is fair.

Then comes the final call. Not with HR. With the CEO or CTO. You ask about business stability, long term plans, and whether the company actually knows where it is going. You ask questions like an investor, because in a way, you are investing your time, energy, and brain. Roles reversed. No HR department required.

At the end, you write to the CEO and tell them if the company passed or not. Or you can just ghost them. They will understand. They have experience.

Sounds good, right? Let me try to sell you on this idea a bit more. In this world, developers who already work at a company stay sharp. They keep learning. They do not forget everything they knew the moment they sign a contract. Developers who want to join also prepare better. You do not ask questions you do not understand. That alone already makes interviews more honest and sometimes harder, in a good way.

There is also a quiet bonus here. The developer gets a real feeling for the team level and the way they work. That means you do not end up in a company where the code quality or standards are lower than what you are used to. Instead, you choose a place where you can grow. That single change could solve many problems before they even start.

It might even reduce self doubt and insecurity, especially for someone new. You enter the company from a position of choice. You picked them. That feeling matters more than people think. And once you start asking a few business questions, you quickly understand the values of the company and the ground it stands on.

Sadly, we will probably visit Dev Heaven only after death. Until then, we survive LinkedIn interviews and hope no one ghosts us this week.