| Even if it's satire — which I think it should be more clear when you write about such a delicate topic — I think it represents quite well the levels of "assholiness" the software industry is reaching these days. I think they can get away today with so many silly hoops because the supply of engineers is quite high these days, and I guess, the FAANG industry standard is the "fair" way to identify the best candidates. Engineers now are putting up with all this because there is not much choice than to spend more time training for this kind of interviews. No matter how much do they talk about talent, judgment, IQ or whatnot, the fact is the more you train, the better you get at this kind of interviews, independently of how capable in your day to day job you are as an engineer. Proof that training works is the whole emerging cottage industry around interview preparation that is thriving these days. Perhaps this is a bubble that will burst at some point, but I'm afraid the bar of ridiculousness will keep raising. If any of the FAANG companies started requiring to complete a marathon in less than 5 hours, they will still find great candidates that will train hard to achieve it. The rationalization after fact would be something like the ability to complete a marathon correlates well with the ability to deliver a project or whatever, but they are just selecting for engineers that will do whatever it takes to get the position, no matter how silly the requirement is. |