Your 4th point is very interesting. These days companies seem to want their candidates to tell the specific accomplishments that they, personally, had completed

Your 4th point is very interesting. These days companies seem to want their candidates to tell the specific accomplishments that they, personally, had completed. I wonder how is it possible to do anything like that without looking conceited? Usually developers of all levels of skills work in teams and if something really good comes out as a result, frequently it's not a single-person merit. Secondly, I do honestly wonder how many developers, even here on HN, have done something so impressive they think it's worth talking about in detail. Most likely whatever they have done, somebody else has already done it better than them in the past. Finally, I can speak from personal experience, when I tried explaining how I (either alone or in the team) have fixed something by applying some solution, the interviewer had made me look like a fool by asking trivial questions, like if we had considered doing this or that, or why haven't we done this instead. During the very limited interview time, it is impossible to convey the full context to the interviewer and too often they don't appreciate that. Too often the companies are looking for unicorn developers but when you somehow get matched, accept a job offer and join the company expecting that maybe this time it's going to be different, better somehow, you are met with the same awful solutions, everything barely working and people being people, just like everywhere else. Suddenly, the fact that you left your ordinary software house and joined FAANG (or MANGA, etc.) loses any significance, except for the financial benefit.