I was expecting a horror story about some leet code problem. It's been 5 years since I last interviewed, but I always memorized how to write the common sort algorithms ahead of time first. Having to write merge sort in C doesn't really feel like a big ask. I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned. Even if we pretend people don't spend months training on leetcode before interviews nowadays, surely sorting algorithms are still taught in basic data structures classes, right?
Not everyone became a developer through CS classes. I'm self-learned, mostly learned what I needed at the job to do that job. I don't think in 10 years I've ever needed to write a sorting algorithm since, well, that's built into the language, so why would I? I've had many jobs, learned many programming languages, and haven't seen one without a sort functionality built-in, or for trickier things where a more advanced library would not be available.
Now maybe this is the whole point, to filter out those who never went to university, but I'd say it's still pretty dumb to test people on things that most likely have nothing to do with the job or just aren't realistic.
That seems like a really inefficient way to filter out people who don't have a CS degree, given that you enter your degree info on the app (and they background check all hires). I agree with you though, I don't understand why the leetcode style interviews are so damn pervasive.
They almost never ask a question you are familiar with, and recently implemented, that's the problem.
"Oh, I know that one!" is not a solution for the rest of us. Including you at the next interview where the different question is to implement the Ceph distributed filesystem on a whiteboard, clock-ticking, and an asshole looking over your shoulder.
