We don't find it hard to hire in the sense that our offers are always accepted. I was moreso trying to indicate the difficulty of finding competent developers in a sea of candidates who are disinterested and lack the technical aptitude.
I am totally disinterested at solving leetcode problems to get a job. If I cant solve a leetcode hard in the 15minutes given in an interview I am deemed as not competent by FAANG. Why couldn't we show our own projects and talk over the complexity behind it and what we needed to solve rather than monkey solving leetcode? I can understand why many people are disinterested.
We don't do leet code or coding tests. We do talk about projects they've worked on in the past - either academic, professional or personal - whichever they're most across.
Again, what I'm saying is despite all this most candidates still don't have anything they can talk about because they're disinterested in IT and doing it for a tech salary. You don't sound like you fit that profile, but most candidates that we receive wouldn't be found on HN anyway.