I've met folks, recruiters and (tech) leadership, at companies that do these type of long, arduous interview processes. They make it a point of ego / pride tha

I've met folks, recruiters and (tech) leadership, at companies that do these type of long, arduous interview processes. They make it a point of ego / pride that they have such a long, arduous process. They've even mentioned the occasional candidate who asks about billable hours for an 8+ hour code problem, saying "Who the hell does that guy think he is?" Of course, they were shocked and appalled when I asked who they thought they were to ask someone to spend 8+ hours of their time on an code test before even having so much as a phone screen to determine compatibility. As it were, this was a company in the contracting space so I assume this is an intentional filter to weed out all but the most compliant individuals. If you're not willing to bend over backwards, they're not interested.