There are 2 problems these days : 1. Companies think they are hot shit. 2. The interviewers are all pretty junior and actually have no idea what they are lo

There are 2 problems these days : 1. Companies think they are hot shit. 2. The interviewers are all pretty junior and actually have no idea what they are looking for, so instead they try to grill everyone in some perceived gauntlet. The reality is that companies need experienced people (of all ages). And that the gauntlet exercise is supposed to do 2 things - first of all, demonstrate that people know a bit about some kind of software development / CS experience. Second of all, and this one is missed a lot, its a chance to see what someone's personality is like trying to solve a problem. Experienced interviewers know that its not about trying to throw problems at people until you exhaust them, its about determining if you want to be on the team with someone when a difficult problem arises (and uses as a proxy for this, how do they react to solving a problem right now in front of you). Companies are about culture - there are still companies out there that do have cool engineering cultures (and some of them are hot shit).