N.B.: Despite the peculiar number of interviews, I was left with a lot of respect for the team members and their work.

If anyone sees an interesting posting for that team, I'd definitely suggest applying.

And their 2 take-home coding projects reminded me why I love performance optimization.

Jeez. Should they not expect each interview stage to at least whittle down 1 applicant for every 2 that reach that stage? That's 4096 people who got to interview.

Or I guess they decided on a "mixture of experts" and put everyone through to multiple "final round" from different domain experts? All of whom are somehow adding value?

I don't think I've ever said this before, but that sounds like a job for a management consultancy.

Wow, and I thought the 8 interviews (each around 45 minutes iirc) I did for Apple was excessive.