[higeorge13]

I trust they were really competent, but it's a bit depressing that these competent people will need to go through the leetcode rituals and 5-10 interviews to get a new job at Meta, Netflix, AWS or adjacent companies. That's actually the point of the original post; you are never judged by your (years of) experience or even your past companies, only by the results of a test from a random person/company.

[akoboldfrying]

I disagree; I don't think a full day of interviews is a huge price to pay for a FAANG job. The stakes are high for the employer, the rewards are high for successful applicants, and if you get to that stage, you've already passed a lower-stakes phone screen.

Put yourself in the employer's shoes: You want a high-quality SWE, you're prepared to pay them top dollar, but if they turn out to be not so great, it's expensive to get rid of them. Would you be satisfied by years of experience at other companies by itself, when you know that (like in many job markets) there's a big market for lemons? I wouldn't. I would want to see the candidate demonstrate some specific skills -- ideally the skills they'd be using day-to-day, but if that's not feasible for time reasons (it usually isn't), then adjacent skills that generally imply (though are not necessarily implied by) them, like recognising the shape of a toy problem, and knowing and applying the right algorithm to solve it.

[higeorge13]

I am not commenting on the interview effort-salary ratio, but the fact that credentials and experience mean nothing to the tech industry, also comparing to the rest of professions. I mean working in Google/Meta/Netflix, is like working on the best hospital if you are a doctor, in the best construction industry if you are an engineer, to best law firm if you are a lawyer, etc. Imagine having to pass a leetcode or iq test everytime you want to move to the next one. I definitely know that my cousin, who is an exceptional doctor in Greece with only 10 years of experience, laughs about it.