[1qaz2wsx3edc]

If someone asks me to code/problem solve in an interview these days, I don't even bother to try, I just pretend to try and answer the question to see their reaction, because by that point I've already lost interest in the position. It's the equivalent of a shit-test, so I like to turn the tables around and see how they react instead.

I do this for many reasons, one of which, is they obviously weren't interested enough in my talents to throughly research me before the interview to assess my skill-set, which means, they weren't that interested in hiring me to begin with. I don't want to work for someone who is just slamming through interviews for talent; I'll bow out. I want to work for someone who is specifically interested in working with me and understands my skill-set before hand. The second reason, I don't deal with these questions is that I don't like to be put on the spot without my normal working environment, I feel at a disadvantage and uncomfortable. Keep in mind most developers are introverts.

I consider a good interview to be about people; not technicals, which can be referenced/refered or looked up; they should provide a medium to see if the employee is a comfortable fit. If goals and motives align. To talk history and such.

[elq]

Oddly enough, people lie, unknown references can be bullshit.

The cost of hiring someone who is incompetent is high. High enough that companies generally make several attempts at finding and filtering people that might be incompetent. I don't think anyone who interviews programmers actually believes the standard technical interview process is fun or necessarily even accurate, but there's nothing else as low cost to implement that works better.

Further, someone who treated a technical problem in an engineering interview as a "shit test" would be walked out at any company I've interviewed for... Good luck with that!

[akanet]

I do not think your attitude or position are indicative of the majority of developers. They also require a huge time investment up front by the interviewer. Even if your individual Github profile (or whatever) is organized, comprehensible, and relevant, it doesn't say anything about the vast majority of developers whose profiles are largely scattered, obtuse, and frankly not even representative of their own work.

If you are a recognized leader in a particular field your situation is obviously different, but you can't expect me as a interviewer looking for a web developer making a mostly standard CRUD app to have the time to delve into your personal history and divine your technical expertise without asking you about it.

[autokad]

if you want to work for one of the large major companies, thats not an option from what I have seen.

i do agree though interviews should be more focused on soft skills and not technical, even for technical jobs.