I don't expect interviews. But I also don't want to spend 20 hours working before getting a "Unfortunately we've decided not to move forward" message.
As a thumb rule, I'm happy to put 4x more effort than the company. If they interview me for 1 hour, I spend 4 hours doing the take-home. Anything more feels like exploitation.
As a general rule of thumb, random series A startups are in much lower demand for top-tier talent than top-tier talent is in demand for these companies. That would mean that the good engineers should set the rules of engagement, and that any startup that thinks they set the rules is attracting worse talent.
Well, unless Qdrant writes a post complaining about the quality of their applicants, I don't see where the issue is.
Also, not all companies try to maximize for "top tier developer", it seems they are maximizing for "top motivated developer", which does not seem stupid either.
"We receive a lot of applications" can be also a marketing speech and it could also mean they are flooded by spam requests from all over the world they can't filter out.
