Work-sample tests are clearly protected; it's IQ tests which aren't permitted (Duke Power v.)

Right but 2 things:

1) HR (presumably taking direction from in house counsel) takes the position that it will be difficult to distinguish between a work sample test and an IQ test

2) We are a large organization with very broad roles. The Performance Team hiring for a Senior Software Engineer will probably want a different work sample than the Analytics Team...

It is simply not true that the Perf team must deliver the same work-sample test as the Analytics team.

Let's not dignify that argument. I absolutely believe you that your company has allowed HR to sabotage your hiring process, and that sucks. But let's not pretend HR is right to do it.

Ironically, a work-sample test which WAS the same across every developer would be closer to an IQ test than if that work sample test were tailored to the role.

There's probably a solid argument for giving every candidate for the same role the same work sample test; otherwise you might naturally want to randomize some parameters or choose from a bank (if you think "cheating" is likely).

The HR involved must be applying cargo cult rules of thumb without understanding the actual rules and the work the company does (which is, unfortunately, distressingly common for HR organizations.) If the actual work you did was such that a work sample would be indistinguishable from an IQ test (which it isn't, for almost any real work anywhere, and you'd have to be ignorant of either what the work is or what IQ tests are to make that mistake for most jobs) then IQ tests wouldn't be problematic in any case: IQ tests aren't specially prohibited in employment, they were just the immediate subject of one notable case which held that anything with a greater impact on a protected class is illegal if that impact is not warranted by the validity of the filter at issue as a measure of performance in the job for which it is used as a filter.

Not only that, but there are several very large companies that do in fact use IQ tests during screening (that's a stupid policy, for what it's worth), so I'm pretty dubious about the claim that IQ tests are unlawful.

They are lawful when you can demonstrate a link between on the job performance and the IQ test. Given how g-loaded software development this should not be hard to show.

Are you looking for a job? :)

I'm looking for a leadership role. Whether that happens at my current company (I'm an IC with a lot of technical leadership and mentorship responsibilities) or elsewhere only time will tell.

If you or anyone you know is interested I'm a software developer and spend a lot of my time on cloud architectures/containers/multi tenancy optimizations but just generally enjoy solving business problems with technology. In a past life I cofounded a startup that didn't turn out to be viable after going through an incubator (not YC). I have a resume, LinkedIn, Github etc.

> "we can't do this because it looks like a test and we'd have to do the same test for every candidate"

Oh, what a terrible tragedy, to give candidates consistent evaluations that are actually comparable between each other... /s

I get the point you're presenting, but at the end of the day it still boils down to "we can't use tests because then we'd have to be held accountable for objectivity, we prefer instead a system that lacks any kind of rigor such that any result may not be effectively challenged, officially or otherwise".