Some years ago I was unsatisfied with my pay and I accepted the interview of a Giant Search corp, getting to the on-site interview. The lunch with random employees was perhaps the best part of the experience for me, as it became abundantly clear that a good chunk of devs that I had some conversation with outlined in very generic terms the same basic stuff everybody else needs to do in software: maintenance, basic infrastructure, scripts, and so on. Which is, you know, totally expected.

I'm pretty sure that everything is at scale and so on, but I couldn't shake the feeling that up to that point the stuff I would be working on was not on the table and I could be switching from a place where I like what I'm doing [biotech] to just a highly paid but plainly boring SE job.

This curbed my enthusiasm instantly. Up to that point in my career I always considered available positions based on the actual function I would be doing in the company, never vice-versa.

The afternoon sessions didn't work as well, and although I could still have some extra interviews through phone calls I cancelled them a few days afterwards.

I cannot say for sure what did I miss, but I am certainly totally disillusioned for Big Search as a company today due to it's consumer attitude that I no longer wish for a position there.