[xamuel]

If you give someone gold long enough, eventually they'll complain how heavy and ugly gold is.

Whiteboards are an unbelievable utopia compared to so many other disciplines. It's an amazing stroke of luck that software developers don't have to do medical-style "residencies". We don't have to rely on letters of recommendation from our professors (hope that professor you slaved away for for six years doesn't have a bad day when he writes your letter!) We don't have to pay thousands of dollars to take excruciating standardized tests to obtain certifications that expire in a decade. We don't have to do unpaid internships, we don't even have to wear business suits to the interview.

Software devs don't realize how many people in the world would kill to have things as good as we have them.

[suzzer99]

I'd be thrilled with that. I've got a great resume, great references from former bosses, and have plenty enough confidence in my ability to work contract for a while to prove myself.

The problem is those things only get you in the door, then it 100% comes down to your whiteboard under-fire skills - which admittedly have gotten worse for me the older I get. Although I know I'm a better programmer now.

[gjm11]

There's a lot of truth in that.

But I'm not sure it's that developers are being given gold and don't recognize it. It's that developers are being given mud and recognize it, while most other people are being given shit instead.

I'd rather be handed a pile of mud than a pile of shit, but it's not hard to feel that there must be some alternative that's better than either.

(Maybe there isn't, though. Matching candidates to jobs is just hard, I think; everyone's incentives are misaligned, performance is difficult to predict, it's amazingly difficult to get past your initial snap judgements or even to realise that you're failing to do so, etc.)

[lacker]

Well, some developers feel like they are being given mud. But developers who are really good at whiteboard interviews feel like they are being given gold.

[walshemj]

A relatively badly paid and low status utopia at the same level of experience and you don't get pushed out at 45 as to old.