Approached online. The recruiter was very polite, communicative, and professional. There were two informational phone calls and then an in-person tech screen. I feel like two informational calls was too much. The tech screen experience was poor (see below).

I was asked questions about my experience. The interviewer asked them like a detective would; like he didn't believe me. He had an aloof smugness that you sometimes see at larger software companies.

The premise of the technical question was very contrived. With such low applicability to the real world, it didn't provide an opportunity for me to show off my skills. When I hit the point where I had to punch through a difficult sub-problem, my interest tailed off. The interviewer's body language and tone of voice had had a whiff of contempt throughout, so I knew I wasn't going to get any support there. I sensed an impatience in him, suggestive that he was keeping a parlor trick in his head.

A word of advice: the purpose of interviews is to collect enough information to make a solid decision on a future relationship. If you play the cold fish; if you build walls between yourself and the candidate; if your difficult-yet-pointless questions are more about your own vanity than learning about a new person; if you keep important things in your head, you are going to lose some very good people and not even understand why.