[mrweasel]

I’m in Denmark. Others may have different experiences of cause, but I never knew interviews to be anything other than a pleasent conversation, mostly about the job.

I have seen small programming task presented to candidates at a previous employeer, after I was hired, but that sort of failed. All the candidate actually submitted perfectly good solution and the process just reverted to just talking to each candidate in a relaxing setting.

Edit: I actually once interviewed for a job that required a personality test, because HR need to justify their existance I assume. I will never apply at a company which uses personality tests again. Not only was it wrong, it’s also kinda traumatic. But this was after actually getting the job, the test was sort of a “before we actually sign, please take this test”

[username90]

I think a big reason software engineers earn more in USA is that they use more technical interviews. In Sweden I doubled my total compensation going from a typical software engineer job to Google. And from what I've seen you would double your compensation doing the same thing in Denmark. The salaries for normal jobs are still ok, but doing those technical interviews is the fastest and easiest way to get paid really well. And you don't just get a higher entry level salary, Google has very generous raises so I doubled my salary again the next few years just doing my job coding and staying at Google.

So my starting salary was close to what typical software engineers earn as a seasoned senior, and then I got to twice that within a few years. That is why I care about technical interviews.