You’re not going to convince a technical hiring manager that their puzzles are demeaning or pointless. They believe they’ve beaten some sort of game. That they

You’re not going to convince a technical hiring manager that their puzzles are demeaning or pointless. They believe they’ve beaten some sort of game. That they post / blog about it just reinforces this. IMHO, if you like the company, just answer the question and add 20% to your ask (fee to deal with person X). The hiring process is usually irrelevant to the company culture in my experience. When I was hiring for my startup it was really just a conversation and reviewing some of their code / ask them to explain what they were doing in a very casual way. Get people relaxed so it’s not some dreaded test. Worked really well for me, but that’s anecdotal. The idea that there’s one true test / formulae is asinine.