Comment by passive

I mean, most of the code is open source. With enough enthusiasm and skill, you could probably make a reasonable home-lab out of that code, and some second hand hardware. And yeah, it would not be _hardware-software-co-design_, but it would be better than nothing, plus you will -- for a brief shining moment -- be the only person on planet earth (who is not formally affiliated with Oxide) who has an Oxide home-lab.

You could be a hero. A legend. The internet might even write poems and sing songs about you.

It’s interesting to me that 9 hours of interview time is considered excessive by some people. Over my career I’ve done interviews that required plane flights, hotels, and multiple separate days on site.

I’ve also done interviews that were brief 30-60 minute casual discussions followed by an offer during the hiring craziness that happened in a few years in the past. Anecdotally, coworkers at those companies were a completely random range from smart and kind down to the meanest, most clueless people I ever worked with. They had high turnover both because they were always firing bad hires (hire fast only works if you also fire fast) and people were burning out from the perpetual stream of bad hires being randomly injected into the company after they talked their way through the short interview.

Looking back, the interview processes that took the longest were certainly not perfect, but the companies that had them were much better about maintaining a coherent culture and high bar for the coworkers I would get. Every new hire felt like someone amazing who I was happy to be working with.

Everyone has different priorities, but looking back I think the relatively small amount of time I invested into long interview processes (relative to the 2000 hours I work every year) was time well spent.

IME those kinds of interviews are a waste for the applicant because you have to do your 5-10 minute elevator pitch and 10-15 minute dive into your experience 9 separate times. It’s terribly exhausting.

On the other hand I like meeting a lot of people that I’d be working with. It’s nice to start day 1 knowing who people are.

You are going to potentially spend a major portion of your life there - so it isn't that weird to set aside a full day to get to know them.

In my experience with this format it isn't like you are coding for 9 hours. It starts with soft HR stuff, ends with a sales pitch to you, and most of the middle is just pleasant conversation with interesting people.

Dont you want to spend more than 1 hour getting to know the company you might spend the next 5-10 years of your life with?

I personally don't mind the multiple interview slots or 9 hours of conversations. It's fair since it takes their team members an equivalent amount of time (though it's split across team members, each team member is likely interviewing many others as well).

My blocker has been the initial written answers to the questions. I've had the questions half-answered for nearly a year now. I want to do it properly (sans AI) but other things come up and I question the EV of spending the time, especially since I'm not a strong writer in the first place※.

For Oxide, it makes sense to demand a strong writer due to their culture, so even if technically qualified I might not be a good fit, assuming I even get an interview.

※ - I write unambiguously, but use point form whenever possible and am not great at naturally writing concisely.

Right...so best interview process in the game for employers, not so much employees.

I agree, 9 of one hour interviews is exhausting just imagining it. In my company, 3-4 steps of 1h each that spans over days were already stressed. Guess I’m too old for that kind of companies

As someone who has dealt with both sides (interviewing and working with those that pass the interview), I really wish a long interview, like this, was standard. 45 minutes is not enough, unless it's easy to fire people.

> Being rejected after investing so much time must also feel awful.

I did an interview process that was 6 hours, one hour per week, then flew me in for a 6 hour on-site. They decided not to take me at that point and provided no reason.

At least you know what the time commitment is up front. Not true of every company.

Nine hours is crazy

I feel like this topic comes up every single time interview processes are discussed. Lots of people complaining "that process is too onerous! How do they expect me to invest that much time! In person coding problems are worthless!" And I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I do wonder what a lot of folks then expect a good process would look like while still allowing the employer enough information to make a decision.

Oxide can obviously impose a 9 hour interview process because they're a good enough company that lots of smart, motivated people want to work there and thus good candidates are willing to endure that process. Lesser companies obviously can't impose that process because there aren't enough good candidates willing to endure it.

My main point being, different strokes for different folks. If you think that process is too long, great, find a company with a less time consuming process. But Oxide's process obviously seems to work well for them, so I think it's pointless to complain about it (note I don't really think that's what you are doing, but a bunch of reply comments certainly are).

I don't know how they possibly read all these in full. They are quite voluminous: 1-3 work samples, 1 analysis sample, 1-3 writing samples, 1 presentation sample, and then 8 open-ended long-form questions. The instructions often say to give as much detail as possible, and they are very clear that this is the main way they filter candidates, so I'm guessing serious applications are quite long.

At some point, there becomes a mathematical impossibility of too many pages of applications for too few evaluators who also have to do the rest of their jobs. Either they don't get quite that many applications, or the initial evaluations must be based on some incomplete reading (looking just at the resume, reading a subsection, skimming, or randomly discarding), or the backlog keeps growing.

Fwiw I also applied and the auto-reply said I should expect to wait 4-6 weeks, which has recently passed without hearing back. The application is a ton of work, and I don't mind doing it with a significant chance of being considered, but I think it's a normal reaction to be devastated if you put all that time and energy into crafting your materials, which manifest all your experience, behavior, and personality, and it turned out nobody read them. I still have a little hope, but I'm sorry you never got a response.

A friend encouraged me to write the paper, even if I didn't submit it, as a means of self-reflecting.

Enterprise software and hardware, built from the ground up. Definitely not just a VMware alternative, though the end product is virtual instances of course.

We're building racks over here! And all our software is open source.

I’m serious I can’t tell what it is. Something with all the benefits of on prem and cloud without the costs of either.