Most initial contact with the company occurs via their North Carolina office, which can lead to a disjointed experience. I would prefer using local contacts exclusively.

I was contacted by an internal recruiter via LinkedIn and subsequently replied with my resume. I then underwent a phone screen with a future peer, who focused on my background and previous jobs. This call lasted only 15 minutes. The peer was friendly, polite, and professional.

My interview was scheduled soon after the phone screen, again through their NC office. I met with approximately five people: the hiring manager and four peers. This interview went mostly well, although they seemed annoyingly focused on IQ and behavioral tests, dedicating little time to the actual job responsibilities. Instead of asking practical, hands-on questions, they spent time trying to profile me. They asked very few technical questions and then claimed to know the extent of my abilities.

I was brought in for a second interview on a different day and met with more or less the same people. This interview was slightly more technical but felt rushed, giving me little opportunity to change their preconceived notions from the previous interview. An attempt to demonstrate some technical skills outside the box was unrewarded; they were not interested and seemed to care little that I put forth the effort.

Everyone involved in the process was friendly, professional, and very nice, including the local HR representative who explained the office culture. However, there is a difference between being nice and being incompetent interviewers. They did a particularly poor job, combining a failure to ask the right questions with an overemphasis on abstract concepts rather than practical application.

Using a normal justice scale (google for an image), what's the minimum number of weighings required to find the heaviest of 9 different balls?