Personally, I have gone through "traditional" hiring cycles.
For my role at Microsoft, I had a pre-screen, a programming assignment, followed by a phone interview, and finally, an onsite-interview packed with 10 hours of coding challenges and discussions. Fortunately, all of my interviewers were reasonable people. Not a single jerk amongst them. The interviews were challenging but pleasant.
But that's not always guaranteed. And I had some horrible experiences with judgemental interviewers and questions that were completely out of context at other companies.
Why did I go through all of this? Well, probably because I knew there isn't a way around if I really want to land that particular job. I knew I have to "prove" myself by going through this process. But now, that I prove to myself that I have what it takes to go through such an interview, I am super hesitant to do it again. Why?
Because I think this process and the high-pressure that comes with it is not a particularly good one to assess people in a holistic way. But also, because I feel more and more that it is disrespectful to ask developers to study up on algorithm, complexity theory and all of that for each interview every single time they interview again. Well, the topic is much more complex than that. Now that I write this, I think I should deep dive into my experiences and thoughts in a separate post. What do you think?