The typical candidate at Matasano spends ~45 minutes talking to me or Jeremiah (the two of us are very senior and currently co-manage recruiting) before they ever get teched out. In that phone call, we try to answer every question the candidate might have about the role, and do our best on the phone 1:1 to sell our firm to the candidate.

What kind of experience does the average applicant have? As a 27 year old dev the process you've described sounds as terrifying as it does exciting.

For instance on the challenges I liked that you put (largely paraphrased here) 'If you breeze through these we might want to talk to you.'. Having ploughed/struggledto set 5 now it's almost daunting to think people DO breeze through that. Granted, the stats you've published so far indicate those people are far and few between. It kind of puts you in your place, but the exciting part comes from knowing there's so damn much to learn still.