[christophergs]

Yes. When I was very inexperienced I still remember being interviewed by an extremely big dog in the open-source world (he was VP of engineering at a very successful startup). I was probably about a 3/10 in terms of quality of interview answers, and unsurprisingly didn't get the job.

Despite that, he still managed to make me feel good about the whole experience. At some points in the interview where I was close/slightly off he'd first coax "that's quite similar to X or Y, don't you think?" then if that didn't work he'd coach "here's how X works, elegant explanation, ok, let's talk about Y".

I remember this vividly years later with a smile. Just like I remember all the negative experiences where people were dismissive or ghosted.