| Most programmers on the market don't have a lot of experience, due to the programmer population increasing in size quickly over the last decades. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_pyramid) So one big question all companies have is how to interview for programming positions by kids fresh out of school or who've had a job for at most a couple of years. This is less a question of competence and more a reflection of the age structure of the market for programmers. You will be working with people younger and less experienced than you. You will probably be hiring people younger than you -- how will you interview them? As someone with a couple decades professional experience, I see these challenges as one of many ways for competent companies to attempt to find competent programmers despite a lack of experience by the interviewee. The last company I interviewed for gave me coding challenges, but that's not all they asked, I got plenty of questions that allowed my experience to shine. If you only got coding challenges as an experienced developer, then yes, that would be a reason to avoid that company. On the flip side, my willingness to take the coding challenges in my interview allowed me to highlight my practical experience, because I crushed them with little preparation. Other experienced devs who refused the coding challenges or dragged their feet and complained about them lost the opportunity to receive an offer. |