[mementomori]

I feel like sometimes big tech companies give technical interviews when they're not actually hiring, that it's a sort of formality. Can't really confirm it, but thinking this way makes me feel better about not passing to the next stage.

[angf]

Correct. In many of these companies, part of your evaluation is how many interviews did you give. This means: the game is to do as many as these interviews, typically once a week, such that you are not penalized for doing too few interviews.

I was once penalized for giving too few interviews but there weren't enough candidates at that time! While I cared about giving every candidate a good chance for success, I can say confidently that not many did care. They only cared about getting credit for doing the interview.