Personally taking so long to hire someone would be a big red flag. I agree that hiring someone wrong can be damaging, but you can usually screen out obvious in

Personally taking so long to hire someone would be a big red flag. I agree that hiring someone wrong can be damaging, but you can usually screen out obvious incompetence pretty quickly for any level real fast in onsites. If I was the candidate I would assume they have a culture of waiting for perfection before shipping tomorrow rather than shipping something OK today and that is not the culture I want to be a part of. Please note that I'm only detailing what I personally would infer from their decision. They may very well have a totally different culture.