Speaking from personal experience, it absolutely does; both on a mental level (the feeling of being watched and judged, leading to constant second-guessing) and

Speaking from personal experience, it absolutely does; both on a mental level (the feeling of being watched and judged, leading to constant second-guessing) and on a physical level, where it invokes the fight-or-flight response. I'm sure the latter in particular was super useful to our ancient ancestors, for whom a shot of adrenaline during stressful situations could be the difference between survival and death. But the physical symptoms - elevated heart rate, dry mouth, tunnel vision, shaking, excess perspiration - are actively harmful to performance in a software engineering interview. I have friends who, before upcoming situations they know will be stressful - interviews for engineers, performances for musicians, surgery for doctors - have obtained prescriptions for beta-blockers, which mitigate the physical symptoms of the fight-or-flight response for a few hours at a time. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker#Anxiety