I was told I would be reimbursed for travel, which was redeye with a changeover, leaving me dead tired. The hotel was very nice, although the area was quite isolated in the boonies. At the HQ, I was asked to wait in the foyer, which was freezing, despite asking to move to a warmer spot, then was asked to provide references and fill out an application by hand, which I had already done online. Like most silly recruitment experiences in 2024, I interviewed for hours with everyone from the lab tech to the directors, in an exhaustive search for the inevitable sourpuss to vote me out and to make the trip a waste of time. The managers were quick to inform me about their pedigree of patents, and generally felt like they were looking for something to dislike. On touring the lab facilities they had no significant instrumentation in use, and appeared to have no culture of innovation but were trying to sell it. Predictably, one mid-level employee decided to bring their work laptop and a chip on their shoulder, and then bristled when asked about their vision of the game-changer for food science. Response: that's not how I think you should think about things, you should just look at the data. At the end of the process, I was told I would be asked to provide 15 references at least, which was some kind of traditional hazing process, which I dismissed as unrealistic. Although I had rapport with the only two people that I thought were attempting to drive innovation, I was ultimately ghosted, and when I asked to be reimbursed for Uber travel my emails were ignored. Overall, I can't recommend this as worth a redeye plane trip.