The reason interviews suck is because FAANG pays multiples of most other career paths, so an awful lot of people want those jobs, therefore they need an ever hi

The reason interviews suck is because FAANG pays multiples of most other career paths, so an awful lot of people want those jobs, therefore they need an ever higher bar for people to jump through. Then every other startup and mid-size company cargo cults the process because they want to hire "the best" even though their funnel looks nothing like FAANG. Basically at this stage whatever process the top company chooses is immediately subject to Goodhart's Law, and they end up hiring roughly the same number of muppets as every other big company, the only thing you get is maybe a slightly higher IQ floor. Casually playing Factorio with someone might give you a strong hint of someone's potential as a software engineer, but the minute you bring it anywhere near a high paying job interview process you are asking for disaster.