it's all been said before here, but after working in IT for 30 years, I've literally forgotten more things that I've done than they could ever ask me. I've wri

it's all been said before here, but after working in IT for 30 years, I've literally forgotten more things that I've done than they could ever ask me. I've written threaded C++ code , built numerous IOS (objective C, Swift) apps for clients, written A LOT of java (many different app servers, most not supported anymore), Node, scala, spark, SQL (multiple dialects).. but I honestly can't remember most of the time how I did any of it (certainly not enough to regurgitate on a programming test). Headhunters are always amazed at the varied work that I've done.. but I've forgotten most of the low-level details which sucks because some of it was like 20 years ago. I've never been let go from any client, and I've been consulting continuously for big companies for over 25 years. But this is clearly not a sufficient for knowing answers to their specific question. I can't tell you offhand how to build depth-first-search, and I can't remember big O for most of the data structures that they would test me on). With three kids, I really have no time hack leetcode problems all day.. I completely understand that they need to filter, but I'm at such an odd place that it's hard for them to quantify my value because it may not line up to their identification process (which is also fair, I suppose). I somehow doubt that it's age bias, it's almost that I've done way too much and they can't rely on trusting that I'm not lying about any of it. I would have to interviewed by someone who puts the same value on my specific accomplishments with specific discussion around design, implementation challenges, etc. Not specific syntactical bullshit questions.. Most of the shit I look up anyway based on what the specific problem is. As someone else said, smaller companies tend to trust a little more in this area.. I basically learn what I need so I can solve their problem in the most performant way. I know I'm not an 'expert' in anything, but I've been able to quickly learn things and apply them so it accomplishes their goal. This isn't really 'testable' per se.. other than perhaps hiring on a trial basis and throwing some difficult problem at me. None of that is really scalable though. It's really a difficult problem.. the best guys I've worked with really didn't look good on paper. However, they always achieved the goals and worked well in chaotic, mostly unstructured scenarios where the goal wasn't well defined, and the technology choices suspect or basically untested. They figured it out.. 'figuring it out' under pressure is hard to quantify in an interview.