If you're interviewing as a "junior" without "seniors" there who know what they're doing, or to be part of a one-man band where you're being pressed for information about something that THEY DO NOT KNOW THEMSELVES, then you should just walk away regardless.

I doubt that anyone pays to set up all the adverts, HR, hassle, meetings, people's wasted time, etc. to get some free techy advice, especially from someone without that much of a career behind them.

But if they are... it doesn't matter. You don't want to work there anyway. If they want to take my answers as some kind of advice and run off and follow them - that's on them. I'd be more annoyed at the waste of time, personally, and I've expressed that in interviews before now, and even walked out of them because of it clearly being a waste of time - they weren't actually interested in hiring those positions, or giving people what they needed to do thejob. They were after scapegoards, box-ticking to say they had someone who they then intended to ignore, or they simply were not ever in a position to understand what the role actually involved and who they should hire.

And if you think that's all they could do, I can tell you that I didn't walk out of an interview where they specifically engaged a specialist IT recruitment expert to sit on a panel, who didn't work for the company and who nobody would ever see again, purely to ensure that they were hiring the right person for the job. I loved him, he was great, and filled all the gaps in interview that they were unable to themselves.

I've even walked out of interviews because the description wasn't anything like the job they were actually talking about (and I raised this in interview), because they were literally just wasting time and they didn't actually want to hire anyone, because the team I'd be managing or part of were an absolute shower and they were defending them (e.g. I once had a day-long "working interview" working for a very prestigious place where... NOBODY DID ANY WORK. It was all show and bluster, and I genuinely thought it was a test, but when I suggested we actually DO SOMETHING they kind of shushed it up and wanted to just carry on doing nothing for the entire day. I walked, and sent their employer a message which I'm pretty sure was entirely ignored. It was an IT department that I was shadowing for an entire day. We literally did nothing. Not a single ticket. Not a cable changed. Not a key pressed. Nothing. But I did watch them basically fob off a very angry member of staff with lies about having to build them a laptop and protested when that staff member left.).

If they think that wasting my time will give them the answers they need, or even give them hints on what to ACTUALLY look for in a candidate in future... so be it. But I won't be working for them, ever. And I'll hit their reputation on that forever.

Hell, I've walked out of interview before we even got to the first question before now, because the guy interviewing was SO INCREDIBLY RUDE and had already: Changed the venue to another place across town, while I was literally driving to them (sheer luck that I pulled over to check an email) without any warning, made me wait in reception there for 30 minutes with NOBODY even coming to update me at all (and I was the only person there, and the reception was dirty and disshevelled), nobody even once apologised for moving the venue, then called me into the interview which he was hosting - I kid you not - in an office you could only reach by walking through a toilet bathroom, with such a small office that myself and the two interviewers couldn't all sit, and had to watch our heads because there were cupboard overhead wherever you were sitting. In a huge, huge organisation.

If that's where YOU are working, and where YOU chose to specifically move the interview to, and I can see a dozen better empty offices on my way to that one, what are my working conditions going to be like? Fact is he was then utterly rude and entirely focused on things that were nothing to do with the actual interview - we never got to a single relevant question. The other interviewer saw me out when I left, and literally had to apologise all the way out. If you're that bitter about hiring a replacement... don't do it. And the organisation itself should never have allowed him to do it, or should at least have apologised properly afterwards.