Comment by crystal_revenge
19 hours ago
> You have to make the question very easy to account for nerves.
What's funny is that this current madness all started with Joel Spolsky [0] complaining that "199 out of 200 programmers can't code", which ultimately lead to the development of the now famous "FizzBuzz" [1] (is it still famous?) which was meant to be exactly what you're describing: Just a simple test that you can write a program from scratch.
It's also worth pointing out that Joel was writing about an entirely different world of software engineering. In the shadow of the dotcom bust their were still loads of mediocre programmers hiding out in corporate dev teams just modifying existing files. But when asked to build something from scratch, they literally didn't know where to start.
0. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/27/news-58/
1. https://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-de...
> their were still loads of mediocre programmers hiding out in corporate dev teams
This is still the case. As long as the industry pays well, it will attract imposters. At most companies, you just have to sneak through the interview process, and blending in from there is easy.