Not everyone lives in the SV. If you interview at a satellite branch of a company that has a big and generic interviewing pipeline, it can definitely happen. I

Not everyone lives in the SV. If you interview at a satellite branch of a company that has a big and generic interviewing pipeline, it can definitely happen. I can do a 4 hour[1] assignment on my own time, assuming I'm not given an unreasonable deadline. For a full round of interviews on site, I need to take a day off. That's a huge difference to me. [1] I've rarely been given any assignment taking more than 2-3 hours, I would flat out refuse anything that can take more than 4. Edit: oh and I can give you a very long list of companies that thought I was "qualified" after 1/2/3 phone screens, wasted a lot of my time afterwards, and ended up deciding I wasn't :)