That seems like a pretty great idea. I especially like the "tests" they give at the end. Asking those questions would give a decent feel for if you would actually want to work with that person.
This kind of interview seems like it will do a better job of hiring great engineers, rather than just hiring the "smartest" person. I think a problem that lots of major tech companies have today is that they've only hired people who are "book" smart vs "street" smart. (If that makes any sense to you in the realm of programming).
I agree, this seems very practical and applicable. Sounds a lot less stand-offish, too. Don't have some guy pulling out obscure brain teasers to assert nerd dominance.
I think " great" engineers would balk at 5 hour interview process. And it seems to concentrate to much on the easy part ie coding and not the tricky soft skills.
On the contrary, I've found that great engineers are more concerned about flimsy interview processes. They know that everyone else will be picked by roughly the same process that they are. They want to have confidence that their colleagues will be good.
(I agree that soft skills are critical, though. I work at Stripe, and part of the reason we picked this set of interviews is to assess those soft skills in something as close to a real-life situation as can be approximated in a few hours.)
I'm not calling myself a great engineer, but I've actually been hesitant to accept job offers in which I wasn't given a challenging interview. A challenging interview is not always indicative of a good job, of course, but with the investment I've made into my skills, I don't want them to languish.
I worked for 2.5 years for a company who interviewed me for 5 hours straight. I had no warning about how long it would last, and it seemed that if I'd been struggling at any point they would have called a halt and said thanks.
That said, their interview process was all fiddly little tests, although since they were in the habit of hiring arts students and training them to code, particularly philosophers who'd done a little formal logic, they weren't about "algorithms", more just little brain teasers with simple, made up languages, and follow up questions like "could you make this any faster?"
This kind of interview seems like it will do a better job of hiring great engineers, rather than just hiring the "smartest" person. I think a problem that lots of major tech companies have today is that they've only hired people who are "book" smart vs "street" smart. (If that makes any sense to you in the realm of programming).