[GeorgeSarkis]

Getting a (new) job in IT is an exercise in futility if you don't know someone inside, so essentially there's not an interview but an invitation.

It's lower-status, more degrading and has worser odds than cold-call telemarketers trying to sell you some new credit card.

By the way, when a telemarketer tricks you into answering his call, you don't subject him to a 3-days intensive rectal exam ("homework") just for the remote possibility of getting a new credit card, which at the end you still don't buy anyways on some made-up pretense.

So developers agree to way worse level of abuse and degradation than the lowliest sales guy.

[LeozMaxwell]

Also there's one and only one defense with respect to abuse either at interviews or after you get the job: having a large stash of money, which allow you to say NO to abuse.

At least 5 years runway, entirely on your own "payroll". If you're actually competent, that's more than enough time to pick any skill (possibly starting your own business rather than look for a job using it), if you can do 12 hours per day by your own choosing on whatever you see fit.

Don't have those 5 years but only 1-2 or, god forbid, have nothing more than a few months on top of a large amount of credit you have to pay back.... and you're in the 99% percent of desperate and destitute crowd who will submit to anything in exchange for a bowl of soup (guarantee they never break out of slavery).

Problem with the solution is that it's a vicious circle: if you don't already have those 5 years of savings, chances are you're never going to save them anyways.