Hired – Technical Interview Score

I wasn't actually interested, mostly just trying to point out that your holier-than-thou attitude isn't really helpful to the discussion. I really doubt that you're some kind of data science deity because you got an engineering degree.

Precisely, IOW they're just for show and are basically GIGO when you're completely honest, but they're a psychological device required both externally (as leverage one way or another towards clients) and internally (it's motivating to see something go forward, even when you know it's completely bollocks†). Just to say that this definitely subscribes to the basic idea that they "are meant to project an idea of objectivity".

BTW, you forgot the part about giving improving metrics to satisfy management and maybe get a raise (vs 100% not getting one), or a nice story line about how you managed to improve team velocity YOY by 50% through magic on your resume, which in the same way is "reducing an engineer to a few quantities" and equally "turns my stomach" as for alexandercrohde. Most of the things I've done to introduce improvements are immeasurable because they're changes that are mindset shifting or technological leverage therefore there is no metric associated because of the pervasiveness of their effects.

† if you're doing, say, 10 push-ups, instead of "1, 2, 3" try counting each number twice, like "1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3". Magic, you've done 20. You know it's a mind trick, but it'll still work.

†† Going from email+phone+hallway communication, silo'd knowledge and SPOF Bus Factor to a serious issue tracking, knowledge sharing, and automation on GitLab. Going from manual machine building to fully automated system provisioning and one liner deployment. Any associated metric would be either completely immaterial (e.g confidence and well being) or produce an off-the chart ratio (just computed one just for fun, that's a ~1800% improvement in human cycles — not even counting failure modes — it's so beyond ridiculous it doesn't even mean anything).

The company I work for has turned into an Agile church. My productivity dropped with more than 50%. Most of my colleagues have left already, now I'm stuck with Agile masters, coaches and all the misery they come up with.

I know I need to look for a new job, but I hate the hiring process sooooo much that I keep procrastinating.

I'm a senior full-stack, have written loads of production software over 20 years of experience. Who the hack from refdash is going to assess me with some stupid algorithm question? Can he build shit himself? If so, he knows this whole process is irrelevant.

Sometimes I really want to quit this business, it has destroyed a lot of fun and passion for coding already..

Great question, when will we decide enough is enough?

I actually don't have a problem with the data structures interview exam inherently, my problem is with how it's administered.

It doesn't bother actuaries have to take exams to demonstrate an understanding of linear algebra, vector calculus, stats, numerical analysis, and so forth. Nor does it bother me that they have take these exams even if they took the material from a reputable college with a good grade. I think it's great that the actuarial field will allow people from multiple educational paths to take the test, giving them a choice about how they learned the material.

But here's the thing - software developers have to take these "interview" exams over and over, at the whiteboard, every time we look for new job. And unlike the actuarial exams, we take these tests under conditions of tremendous secrecy. We don't know if our examiners are qualified, or if their questions are vetted, or if the exam is consistently applied and graded. We don't have a clear and defined study path, aside from books like "cracking the coding interview". And we get no feedback, hell, at times we don't know if our performance was evaluated at all.

I've considered this for a while, and I've come to understand that exam-based professions and institutions, such as the medical boards, the bar, universities, have evolved a set of considerations, kind of a student bill of rights. Students must submit to the exams, but they have the right to a fair and consistently administered exam, evaluated by respected people in the profession or field, that the exam questions should not be capricious or utterly unexpected, that there is a preparation path, they get feedback on why they did not pass. What we have in tech is the stress and burden for examinees, in many ways amplified (whiteboard coding, on the spot, is among the more stressful ways to take an exam). But the student bill of rights is largely non-existent, and I think this is the deep and severe problem with tech interviews. Until this changes, to me, nothing can change meaningfully. And I don't just mean in interviews, I think this sort of thing is what is deeply rotten about tech, at the core of many of the problems (in a field where there's a lot of suspicion about bias, are secret tests under capricious conditions a good idea?)

And we're expected to come back for more of this, over and over, and to just take it.

Oh, by the way, there's a shortage of software engineers, best solved by putting tech companies in charge of the immigration system so they can decide who is and isn't allowed to come to the US based on how well they do on these interview tests/how much they're willing to put up with these interview tests.

> How many traders at Goldman Sachs don't have degrees from Penn/Harvard/Yale/etc?

The big tech firms are notorious for the same thing with a slightly different set of high-prestige schools, so I don't know what difference you are trying to draw?