To be frank, I interviewed at Pure primarily as an escape route from my prior job, where I'd thoroughly burnt out after nearly 7.5 years. I wasn't particularly excited about working at another storage company down the peninsula (and commuting from SF like I'd done prior to my last job), but a couple of my former colleagues were there, and their reference got me straight to an on-site interview.

But this on-site interview actually convinced me that this was exactly the kind of place I wanted and needed to be. The questions were very challenging. I talked to four people, and they each gave me one hard but doable problem. Only for the last was I able to leverage any domain-specific knowledge (e.g., my 10+ years in SAN/NAS); the rest of the problems were really excellent questions getting at fundamental problems of optimization, concurrent programming, data structures/algorithms, and troubleshooting.

I did well (they hired me, and I was told afterwards that no one had ever done as well on the domain-specific problem), but I had to work for it (I didn't already 'know' the answers), and it felt great doing so. I had the kind of back-and-forth dialog that you really want to see in an interview, because it gets to the heart of how you would interact with folks as colleagues.

Knowing the bar is set so high – and knowing I'd cleared it – reassures me that I'm in the right place, and will be in the right place for the foreseeable future. I left my last job because I'd become 'the smartest guy in the room,' when I'd joined that organization specifically because I was so happy to work with so many people that were smarter than me.

There was an excellent question on concurrent programming, critical sections, and reentrancy (the details of which I can't remember and wouldn't share if I could, honestly). I had just enough familiarity with the concepts to wing my way through it. This actually makes for a way better interview than just nailing something because you've solved the exact problem before.