As a developer who is currently in the market after the last startup I worked for started laying people off, I definitely agree that the current process can be badly broken. This is the first time I have had to go out and interview cold in six years, and I'm struck by how much it has changed. I had one company put me through seven interviews with different team members, each lasting 30-45 minutes, each appearing to go very well (including comments like "You're a shoo-in" and "I'll be very excited to work with you," only to receive a two or three sentence brush off email more than a week after the last of them. The whole process took nearly a month. I interviewed with another company, an NYC startup, and again it went well. After three weeks and no response to a polite inquiry email from me they finally reached out and asked me if I wanted to do an onsite. Three weeks without a word on how I had done or whether they wanted to proceed. I don't want to work for a company that treats candidates like that. There were other examples: a company that did two phone screens and told me I'd fit in "very well" and then asked me to drive to Boston for a f2f lunch (ten hour road trip), after which they brushed me off because they didn't think I'd be happy if I couldn't use docker and kubernetes right away. I interviewed with a large mid-western company a week ago today, second interview, spent almost an hour with two senior engineers. Felt like it went well. Have not heard a single word since, and no reply to an inquiry email. It's just disrespectful as hell in my opinion, and tells me a lot about a company's internal culture.