A startup. Got a phone call asking if I was coming in. I forgot about the interview and apologized (I'm extremely disorganized). They asked would i like to come

A startup. Got a phone call asking if I was coming in. I forgot about the interview and apologized (I'm extremely disorganized). They asked would i like to come in the next day. I went for it making sure not to forget this time. The interview was a walk to the coffeeshop and a talk about tech which is something I can talk about endlessly. They were very small and didn't have enough senior expertise. One of the topics was the resources they were using for how many clients they had. It didn't make sense and I diagnosed that they probably didn't have the indexes setup for their db use cases correctly (they didn't even know what a db index was and had very basic sql knowledge). I started the job there and then and I was right about the lack of db indexes. They say startups should hire those with flaws who can otherwise do the job since startups can't compete with big tech on pay. Between the mobile device apps I made for them, the database optimizations which saved them a fortune in aws rds fees, moving them off a $100k/year image/video processing service to an aws scaled jobs service that cost a fraction of that I think I did a pretty good job. The lesson here is probably one for the interviewers. You may be looking for red flags that allow you to rule someone right out. You might want someone that's followed the same path you did and has the same bubble of knowledge. But you're going to miss a chance at a new perspective. That's also the risk with a formal interview process in general. All those who pass will have a similar set of traits. Maybe that's desired but maybe it's also a negative. Having said all of that shortly after that startup job I moved into big tech where I've been ever since (albeit in different big tech roles - I have a personal goal to work at all the FAANG for at least a few years). I have no trouble with the big tech interviews, yes they take at least a week of solid study beforehand which is a pain but there's no issue getting through them if you're willing to do that. I still think the informal coffee chat interview allows for more diverse hiring though.