I’m clearly not great at expressing myself (I already knew this). When I said “clearly this was a screening failure” I was trying to signal that this was extreme case (2 years later, I’m still reveling in the relief that that interview is over). I’m otherwise also in the same boat as you, but was trying to shed some light on some positive experiences with coding exercises I’ve had, although it was a pretty special company I was at and it doesn’t match the experience of most of the interviews I’ve done recently. I’m feeling the urge to start venting about these interviews so I’m going to stop.
…but for a taste:
I was told the “next steps” was going to a pairing exercise. This “pairing exercise” ended up being a timed (3 hour) solo exercise on zoom, being recorded, having to talk aloud to myself through what I was doing. I’m still kicking myself for agreeing to do that as… well, I mean, we’re all very lucky with the money we can make in this industry but that did not feel good at all. To top it off, when they rejected me they said they could “give me feedback, but not necessarily feedback, just talk through the exercise” and I said ok and I never heard from them again.
