[pdubs1]

I agree-- it feels 100% like tail chasing, and not like normal problems I encounter in coding up a business-tool related full stack application.

Plus, I have my own personal projects to work on. Plus, I have an open source project available for perusal. Therefore, I refuse to do leetcode/hacker rank problems for interviews.

I lucked out-- For my current job offer, I simply had a 45-minute conversation, answering technical questions about a particular language, as well as behavioral questions, with three people involved in the hiring decision. Two days later they notified me with a verbal offer that they would like to hire me. Note: I also have an open source project which they reviewed during their hiring of me.

So, given that success-- one interview -> hired, I am quite happy, but I know it's not the typical manner of hiring.

That said, since other recruiters are contacting me regularly, I am taking interviews. However, i inform them:

A. I am coding my own business project at the moment.

B. I do not code for free, not even for interviews.

C. I've received a verbal job offer, from an interview which did not require a coding test.

D. I have an open source project featuring a few thousand lines of code which can be reviewed-- if a hiring engineer is actually interested in seeing my code.

(That said, I did notice that learning to solve algorithm-efficient problems via video series has improved my skills. Just not that substantially, and not in a way that is necessary for my projects-- the code already works pretty gosh darn fast at the scale of my projects & past projects for companies which hired me-- they didn't need google or amazon level code efficiency.)