I would like the difficult interviews if there were upside to them. Let's say that I'm a Level 6 engineer (on an abstract scale) and you're hiring me for a Leve

I would like the difficult interviews if there were upside to them. Let's say that I'm a Level 6 engineer (on an abstract scale) and you're hiring me for a Level 7 position-- a small promotion to offset the risk of changing jobs. If the technical interview, I might fail (false negative). If that came with upside-- really nailing that machine learning brainteaser would make me eligible for Level 8 or 9 and the comp increase along with it-- then I'd be fine. My issue with the tough, multi-day interview processes is that there's often only downside. Why throw 4 hours into a company's take-home code test just to (possibly) get the same standard-issue, market-level offer I could get somewhere else? A few years ago, I submitted a code sample that was ranked among the top 3 submissions ever-- I worked hard on that fucker-- only to receive a junior-level offer with <0.05% equity. So what was the point of doing the code sample? On age and the quality of engineers, I generally find that older engineers are very good. That said, I'd be skeptical of someone who did "regular old" corporate engineering for 20 years. Why didn't he get out? I completely understand not wanting to move into management, but why didn't he look for an R&D job or move into an architectural role or try to become a consultant? (He may have good reasons, like wanting to stay in Ohio with his family, and therefore having fewer career options; I'd just try to figure out what they are.) Corporate engineering has a low ceiling and anyone good is going to have at least the desire (some may not have the ability, like someone tied to a geographical area) to break through it. The cult of neoteny-- Agile and open-plan offices and the all of the other subtle signs of an age-discrimination/permanent-junior culture-- is somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mainstream engineering, in most organizations, is a user-story ridden ghetto, a backlog-retrospective meeting that never ends. By 35 or so, the good engineers have either gotten out of it (possibly moving into R&D, data science, management, or independent consulting roles) or left the industry entirely. The culture of short-termism, open-plan offices, and business-driven engineering provides no exit. You don't get to escape it, in most companies, by being good at your job-- unless you become a manager. What's happening is that tech's "thought leaders" are creating conditions that are hostile to older talent (which is necessary if you want your technology to be any good) with "Agile"/Scrum micromanagement and bullpen office layouts, then saying, "See, no one over 40 is any good". (In fact, there are a lot of good people over 40; they just don't want to work for jackasses.) This is congealing into a pernicious cultural assumption, based on shitty data, when we should actually be blaming the VCs and the mediocre middle-managers-I-mean-founders they fund instead of "old programmers".