This is one of my biggest frustrations with this industry. Interviews often feel like a perverse hazing ritual. Rather than seeing if you’re capable in general,

This is one of my biggest frustrations with this industry. Interviews often feel like a perverse hazing ritual. Rather than seeing if you’re capable in general, we hit you with obscure trivia and worthless brainteasers to see if we can trip you up. I’ve watched great, experienced candidates be rejected by a co-worker because they couldn’t recall the arguments to some arcane function. The candidate had decades of experience, had worked on awesome stuff, had a good personality, and seemed super capable. It’s mindblowing that he was rejected because of something so worthless. My personal suspicion is that developers use this interview style as a way to boost their own ego. They feel better about themselves because they get to reject someone. This is purely anecdotal, but it’s usually the least capable developers I’ve worked with who are most eager to reject candidates for bullshit reasons. I’m fortunate to be really good at this kind of brain teaser interview. It’s helped me keep steady employment for a long time. That said, I don’t think makes me a better developer than someone who isn’t good at whiteboard coding. In production you can use Google, or an IDE, etc. I just don’t see the point of this style of interview.