> gauging their general experience and answers to some technical questions This plus a very easy coding question (think fizzbuzz) works really well at a small

> gauging their general experience and answers to some technical questions This plus a very easy coding question (think fizzbuzz) works really well at a small enough company that you can ensure that all interviewers: 1. Are far enough above the hiring bar that they can comfortably tell when other people are (people near the bar have a harder time distinguishing whether someone is a bit above or below the bar) 2. Are invested enough in the company to want to do a good job interviewing 3. Are thoughtful enough to gauge the competencies the company needs for the role. Those needs are not universal, I know developers who thrive in super technical no-nonsense roles who flounder in product-y work. If a company is very large or growing rapidly it is nearly impossible to guarantee these things. My experience is that companies that don't adopt something like the industry norms lose control of their hiring bar. In some cases this is fine (sometimes you need quantity, not quality) but if the business relied on that high technical bar there's generally a cascading effect of initiatives failing, good engineers leaving, and more initiatives failing because of it. I've seen this tank a few startups in the 50-100 engineer rage.