[lighthazard]

My years of experience, good work history, and solid interviewing isn't enough! I have to sit down and PROVE I'm worthy to bugfix software by taking my free time and doing homework. But that's not all! If I don't leave and breathe software, why am I even in the field?

I'll resonate your sentiment - software interviewing is such a burden on everyone. Yet I can't think of many other places that do this. Maybe some 'show previous work' which many can do, but what else? Any other careers that require you to do "exercises" and "live exercises" ?

[gigatexal]

I know and I agree but as an interviewer who is on the front lines (I’m the first interviewer after the HR screening) I have to conduct live coding challenges (but I go out of my way to put the candidate at ease; I mention we are colleagues and that I’m not trying to trip them up but they I think of it more as a pair programming thing and that they can use Google and ask questions or ask for hints etc etc) to weed out those that embellish or exaggerate their skills. I’ve found it has worked: someone that sounded amazing and said all the right things in the screener wasn’t able to do the equivalent of a fizzbuzz for data engineers and we avoided hiring someone who is junior for a senior role. (We do then consider these folks — depending if we think they were lying or just over eager — to come in as junior engineers if they want, though, so that’s something.)

[lighthazard]

I believe this is the correct approach and I do a similar thing where I work. A pair programming challenge should be enough to identify a good fit candidate - being able to discuss how they are thinking through a problem, answering questions they have to elaborate on the problem, seeing how they debug, and how they search are very useful!

[dvtrn]

Any other careers that require you to do "exercises" and "live exercises" ?

Acting.

Fwiw, I also despise “take home” assignments and most (but not all) forms of ‘technical assessments’ but since you asked…