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> Taking many half days of personal leave just isn't workable either.

Why it isn't? A genuine question, I presume this is more typical US culture or dare I say workaholism and various self-pressures to maintain some public office image?

I recently took quite a few half days off to manage workers doing bigger reconstruction in our apartment. Sometimes full day. Then smashed a week of vacation in Sardinia in between. Everybody understood whats happening, nobody cared since many went through similar exercise before.

Your time is your time, if you actually let it happen. Or you can spend your life living with servile attitude, nobody will thank you though.

> Why it isn't? A genuine question,

Because my personal leave is time I want to spend with my family. I would have had to have taken about 4 days worth of leave (8 half days) to cover these interviews and that's 4 days a year less I get to spend with my wife and kids.

(UK based so not US culture, and not workaholism or image.)

I usually refuse such Silicon Valey interview style, unless I am desperate for a new position.

For the ones I usually take, a few hours out from overtime budget is enough, or WFH days.

With 30 days holidays + overtime budget, taking a day off for an site interview, is manageable.

Having to work for only 11 months per year is a luxury.

Depends on where one lives on the planet, yes some countries have better labour laws than others, even unions for IT workers.

> I interviewed at four companies, each with four rounds of interviews (usual variations on 30m recruiter screen, 45m-60m tech discussion or coding exercise, 60m-90m tech deep dive, 30m-45m final wrap up with hiring manager). All over the course of about 3 weeks. It was about 16 hours in total.

Programmers don't have any self-respect.