No, they are not. The things programmers do are not mundane. The word you are missing from your description is "effects". The parts of program or system intera

No, they are not. The things programmers do are not mundane. The word you are missing from your description is "effects". The parts of program or system interacts with each other not only by passing and returning values, but also by effects. It is good if your effects are isolated in SQL with ACID, but oftentimes they are not. The interaction is often subtle when resource in conflicting usage is shared indirectly (systems programming, come here!). And in the end of the day you are more Sherlok than you could imagine you ever would. I am here not to say that interview questions are perfect. I am here to say that things that programmers do are not mundane (or they would be automated out quite quickly).