[ehnto]

Totally agree. Successful software engineering has almost nothing to do with clever programming tricks and everything to do with writing software that's empathetic to being within a commercial and team environment. That means writing software that takes into account that it will be read by others, used by others, and inevitably changed by others.

Interview processes at so many software companies don't do a good job of selecting for it. They still look for algorithmic competence and next to nothing about teamwork and structuring software projects.