It was ok, but I do feel this was a bit of a sham interview. I did know they were using this particular position to pivot in a different direction. However, I did not know initially that this work was already being done by contractors. This changes the situation a great deal. I did not feel that in the second step the interviewer was as interested in what I could bring to the company and role, but instead was looking for any and every excuse to keep on the contractors. I wouldn't claim this is a "ghost" position, but I do feel misled. Interviews are good practice, but even so, I wouldn't even be able to trust any feedback as they were heavily biased towards keeping on their present course in my opinion. If they were serious about replacing contractors, they would have timelines in place and be discussing how the work would be migrated to a full time role. Additionally, and I am surprised a lot of companies have not thought about this, engineers on small teams can see potential new hires as possibly displacing coworkers with whom they may have a neutral or friendly working relationship or even as competition. This means they have no real incentive to be impartial. Perhaps this company should adjust its earlier hiring steps accordingly by having the hiring manager be involved equally and to disclose the timeline for moving the contractor. Convenience shouldn’t override fairness or quality. In small teams, hiring manager involvement is essential to create a structured, unbiased, and meaningful interview process.