I think lots of companies only interview up to Level 2.<p>I won&#x27;t mention a certain big one, but they just test to make sure your brain grasps the concept of pointers. They do pay upscale salary and are in one of the major startup hubs.<p>I&#x27;d say Level 2 is the optimum to be comfortable in for a degree level if you do a lot of tough stuff. Level 3 if you&#x27;re in something more niche like optimizations. A huge, listed company like Google or Microsoft might do Level 4, only because they have the money to solve problems that give a 0.01% improvement and want to maintain that competitive edge.<p>There&#x27;s a reason for this - the best programmers have an abundance of job offers. So it&#x27;s good not to annoy the candidate too much or to stretch out the interview process very long.