[kfcm]

Here's food for thought.

Does this happen with experienced positions open in other departments?

Are experienced CPAs interviewing for the new position in Accounting required to balance an example set of books?

Are experienced Sales interviewees expected to go out and sell a sample product before being hired?

A lawyer for Legal expected to write a sample brief or appear before the court in a sample trial?

HR expected to do sample HR things?

Think about it.

[kemitche]

I won't say I agree with most interview processes for software, but here's more food for thought:

CPAs presumably have been externally certified, so perhaps you only need to check "team fit" things.

Sales interviews: if you can't sell me on yourself, why would I hire you? The interview is enough.

Lawyers I would assume have some number of public items for me to look at.

Software engineers: none of that applies. If they've contributed to open source, maybe you can look at that, but many of the great engineers I've worked with have not.

[timr]

You're making an assumption that the tech screening process actually screens people on a criterion that matters. But nobody measures the false-negative rate, so they have no idea.

I've now worked at places that did CTCI interviews and "traditional" interviews, and I've noticed no difference in overall quality amongst the employees. I've known plenty of idiots who work at big, famous tech companies, and plenty of amazing people who never ran the whiteboard gauntlet at GooAmaFaceSoft.

My opinion has evolved: tech interviews are the result of generations of cargo-culting amongst a group of people who copied Microsoft, and never really questioned their assumptions. They're just as random and noisy as any other kind of interview, but far more arrogant. Spolsky was right that you should do a FizzBuzz test, but that's it. That's all you need. Everything else should be about communication, personality and the other intangibles that matter far more for every job that involves working with other people (which is all of them).

[cl0wnshoes]

Not that I don't agree... but for a CPA, lawyer, engineer, and many other professions you have to go through years of education and rigorous testing to acquire the titles. We pull down some of the highest salaries in the US, we have incredible responsibility, and our profession requires zero formal education or testing to prove our abilities. It shouldn't be too far fetched to understand why some companies feel the need to vet their candidates.