I think we're increasingly losing the art of making and taking ownership of technical decisions that correspond to the level of the position and the job title.

I think we're increasingly losing the art of making and taking ownership of technical decisions that correspond to the level of the position and the job title. When the author says that "technical skills have definitely sharpened up by practicing Hackerrank-style questions", I would actually say that senior engineers practising online problems would have added value no more than getting better at Sudoku. I've been frustrated by senior software engineers who have strong opinions and can talk hours about the choice of text editors but then magically disappear when it comes to making project-critical decisions with millions of dollars on the line. I think this is reflected in the hiring process also - no one wants to be responsible for bad hire so it becomes a group-think exercise where each applicant has to get thumbs up from half-a-dozen interviewers. This will inevitably drive mediocrity and I'm sure this also structurally weeds out any candidate who can become a threat.