Does the company you are at now pay developers the same as the companies that ask these types of questions? In my experience the companies asking these types of questions are picky because they can be.
Google-esque companies figure "Let's just ask these hard puzzles to filter by IQ, everything practical (e.g. databases) can be learned"
However, some companies tend not to see these specialized puzzles as an IQ test, but rather a memorization-based learned skill (learn these 10 algorithms and their performance metrics). To them, asking questions that represent day-to-day job challenges is a better predictor.
They aren't picky because they can be. If that were true they wouldn't be complaining about the lack of qualified developers (pretty much every tech company I know of).
Rather, they're picky because they (think they) need to be.
Note that I'm not judging whether they are right or not.
We pay very well for the area. We are not in Silicon Valley, but I know some of our salaries are higher than those of my friends who are at Google's MV campus.
It's not terribly impressive to have a higher salary then a GOOG employee, but higher total compensation after stock and bonuses would be saying something.
Interesting. What industry if you don't want to name names? Total comp at Google for a "senior" (8-12 years experience) is $300k-$400k. Rare to hear about a non SV darling paying developers that much.
Google-esque companies figure "Let's just ask these hard puzzles to filter by IQ, everything practical (e.g. databases) can be learned"
However, some companies tend not to see these specialized puzzles as an IQ test, but rather a memorization-based learned skill (learn these 10 algorithms and their performance metrics). To them, asking questions that represent day-to-day job challenges is a better predictor.