I feel similarly as the author but I'm starting to take a more balanced approach to all of this and it's helping me put things into perspective. I'll play the game because I'm not sure what other choice I have. I don't enjoy my current job and in order to get the jobs I want with the people I want to work with this is the price. That being said, it's absurd we have to do this EVERY DAMN TIME. Even moving between FAANG requires you to do this. That in and of itself is a clear indication of how bad of a signal this interview process is. Reviewing reddit and team blind and HN (as this is the best data that I have), it seems many folks working at a big tech company still need to leetcode to move to another big tech company despite already passing the bar at one! If that isn't a clear indication of the type of information these interviews provide I don't know what other evidence we need.
And here is the real crux of the whole thing. Considering how standard it is, we might as well just make it a part of a software developer certification/license that you have to do once to break into the industry. The funny thing is, despite our best efforts to not become a real standard profession we are behaving a lot like one, except we don't realize it and keep making candidates jump through the same hoops repeatedly.
Now many of you will balk at the prospect of standardizing but hear me out. Are we really that different from any other profession? At the end of the day most CS curriculums are very much the same. Why can't we do standardized tests to "pass the bar" so to speak? And additional certifications can be taken for specialties (e.g. ML, Cyber Security, Finance etc.) like in many other engineering professions or like specializing in medicine.
Yes, knowing algorithms and data structures IS imporant to being a good software developer, even if you are building CRUD or mobile apps. But, how many times to do I need to prove I know them? Yes, showing leadership skills IS important to being a good software developer. But isn't being a leader mostly about conflict management, moral obligation and being ethical?
Maybe we can stop fearing becoming a real profession that is beholden to standards and public scrutiny and embrace it. It will end up being better for everyone.
For juniors (not in age, but in experience), it offers a consistent predictable way to learn and grow, and a set of criteria they can focus on learning to land junior positions. From there we can treat them like apprentices, and to get certification you need to spend x number of years being supervised. This allows companies to also retain their junior talent for longer and their investment in their training can pay off in the long run because even if they lose a junior who's now certified, they can hire a recently certified intermediate from another company!
For seniors, it means we can focus on demonstrating why we are seniors (i.e. I've built these systems, led these projects, etc.), and offers a real honest predictable path to becoming a staff or principal (i.e. a master).
For companies, it means they can focus on hiring PEOPLE, not leetcoding machines. They shouldn't have to worry about assessing the technical skills of individuals. The only reason they do so is because they feel they have to. If they had confidence that the people they are interviewing are likely qualified as it is, then they can actually focus their time and effort on more important things to assess such as if a person is a good fit for the mission. People assume companies do this because they want to haze candidates. The reality is, companies just don't have any better way of de-risking their hires at this time.
We can revisit the criteria regularly to make sure the tests we need to pass represent what it means to be do our jobs and do them well. We can have industry input, academic input and so on. We can even have the professional body accredit programs so as not to have candidates waste their time and to ensure academic programs keep up with the advances industry makes. Further, we can make this a global thing.
Rather than shunning becoming a true profession, let's learn from the mistakes of other professions and build a process that helps everyone.