[lordCarbonFiber]

I think you've missed an important step in how these systems are used at these companies and how their funnels work. For a comapny like Google, their funnel is so tight by the time a candidate is onsight it's known that they're capable.

Instead, the "nerd show off event" exists for one reason "see how much you want to work at that company". Since the realities of software development means the bulk of the engineers will probably be working on some small part of an unglamourous project, yet the "big 4" still want a monopoly on the best and the brightest, the interview process exists as a very targeted test to find people willing to jump through hoops. At this point the broad strokes of what is required is a solved problem, you just need to spend several weeks/months studying up on errata. The thinking is, any candidate willing to do that will be willing to spend several years working on CRUD interfaces for adsense or refactoring old php.

[EpicBlackCrayon]

I think this is right on the money, particularly with respect to Google. They're going to lock you away for X years to work on some internal project that'll probably never see the light of day. I think all of the hullabaloo about company culture "fit" and the awe of working for the Big G factors into that. The work is probably boring and mundane and they hope to further lock you in by making sure that you only subscribe to their ideology. This is all conjecture for now, but I have an internship coming up with one of the Big 4 and while I am genuinely excited/interested to work there I wonder if it'll also confirm my suspicions.

Would you say that Apple or Microsoft are any different?

[NTDF9]

You are right.

In other words, they want people who'll work for them without complaining. Submissive people. People who won't think out of the box.

[EpicBlackCrayon]

That's a scary thought to me. One that's probably correct, but scary, especially at companies who claim to champion "outside the box" thinking. It's almost like a sort of "Do as I say, not as I do."

[lordCarbonFiber]

I think it's just the reality of how software is made. There's room of innovative thinking in small startups, or at the highly technical specialized teams in mega corpX, but at the end of the day the grunt work has to be done by someone and that's going to fall to the line member.