First I had a phone screen. Then, a few days later, I went in for a face-to-face interview with the hiring manager, three of his colleagues, and finally, a brief stop to an HR person. On the face of it, I seemed to be a perfect fit for their stated requirements. The manager said they were looking for someone eager to learn new technologies, explain them, and demo them to various parties. Well, no-one loves to learn new technology and can explain them better than I can! They were a bit behind the times, just starting to move to AWS, for instance. Also, they were just starting to look at using Hadoop, which seemed a little behind the times for a research organization that analyzed data. The manager explained to me that the old CIO had allowed deep attrition during the whole sequestration debacle within the government. Now they were looking to expand staffing again. The interviews did not press me or place me under any kind of stress. They had expressed some concern to the staffing recruiter that I had a consulting background, and perhaps they were afraid I wouldn't stay there in their organization for the long term. They "deliberated" about the interview for two days, so they must have struggled with some issue. Or perhaps some liked me and others didn't. At any rate, they didn't proceed to the next level, which would have been a second face-to-face, where I met some of the research developers.