I've been on both sides of the table and the reality is that high stakes full day interviews kinda suck - they're noisy and tuned for high false positives (if t

I've been on both sides of the table and the reality is that high stakes full day interviews kinda suck - they're noisy and tuned for high false positives (if they're even tuned at all). Sometimes people get lost solving a problem, or don't ask clarifying questions, or are just too nervous, drank too much coffee, or maybe just didn't get a full night's rest. For most processes - it usually takes more than one bad round but one bad round can rattle a candidate who can cascade. I like to think i'm a decent interviewer (and interviewee - not particularly gifted at CS but I've run enough rounds to recognize most problem types) I've gotten offers from 'big 5' companies but have been rejected by some as well. One reasonably well respected tech company wouldn't even screen me. Just a vague rejection, 'not a good fit at this time'. Who knows why - resume went to a busy team lead who looked at it for 5 seconds and took a dislike to some word choice. Or maybe they were on a hiring freeze and the 'open positions' were just for show. Maybe the non-technical recruiter didn't recognize the technologies listed actually matched what they were looking for. Who knows. The process sucks. Everyone knows it sucks. Maybe 'of all the processes it sucks the least' Churchill-style. I think it's slowly getting better, people are getting more objective - less stupid brain teasers. As engineers we want things fixed fast (like a merged PR) but people driven processes move and change slowly.