This was a bit strange. The CEO himself arranges a mere 10 minute phone screen for a very senior technical position. The first question was why did you leave your previous job? This seems odd to me because I would expect the most important thing to be what I can do for them. He used the rest of the time to give a pretty detailed description of the role. He said he would schedule another interview with his technical guy. Instead he asked for a sample of my writing and more details on why I left my previous job. After a few days he writes me that the technical guy says "no". I could not get any explanation as to watch qualification I lacked, nor had there been any discussion about my qualifications and abilities. Bizarre. This company does seem to be in a death spiral--others have reported this. They don't have much of a product now, and are shopping for government contracts. They are only about 20 people in a small suburban office. My guess is that they needed someone who was happy going along with nonsense and writing grant proposals--which isn't me. The weird thing about the whole process was just the strange communication and strange decision process based on little or no facts.