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by dylangs1030 4651 days ago
I highly second this. To offer my own recent experience, I just had an interview yesterday of this format. It was around 4 hours (5 including lunch with the team).

1. I was repeatedly made to feel welcome, comfortable and calm as I possibly could be by everyone I met.

2. I was given technical questions that were appropriate and highly correlated with what I would be doing on a daily basis.

3. I spoke directly with two founders who, despite having my resume, opted for talking to me about my background, my goals, and offered answers to any questions I could possibly think of.

4. I was interviewed by four people total, and only one at a time.

It was honestly the most enjoyable interview I've ever had, despite the fact that I was initially nervous and didn't know what to expect, and it took the better part of a day. It was literally fun - if nothing else, this experience has given me a model for how I would interview candidates in the future if I am ever a hiring manager.

I wish every company operated this way - on some level, I think a lot of people who interview candidates don't know what they should look for, so they fall back on the "legendary battery" style of asking a suite of questions that only a recent 4.0 MIT CS graduate could answer confidently (and who could totally fizz out when asked to do something that isn't in Intro to Algorithms).