After reading Cracking the Coding Interview... I was more than satisfied about getting a job as a "Software Developer" instead of "Software Engineer"... then going home after job, not thinking about job, big O in the shower etc... whats the point of life, if we don't have the time to investigate "this" thing we call living.

I’m in the same boat ... but at this point I try not to feel bitter about it. I feel that if a company gives me an interview like that I’ll just do it - 0 prep usually - and if it doesn’t work out, well I’m probably dodging a bullet because I did learn a lot about their culture right off the bat (and I feel you should be equally skeptical about someone who doesn’t try to gauge your skills in any manner).

For better or worse, this practice will take their company wherever it’s meant to go.

I had your attitude before, with a similar amount of experience. The industry isn't changing it's practices, so seek out more specialized roles related to your experience. This reduces the white board factor.

tl;dr:

- None of us know everything about every environment, even though we often imagine we do

- If you want a job, and spending a few hours prepping on data structures and algorithms (either to improve your performance, or to verify your performance is in fact perfect) will help your chances of success or your confidence, why not do it?

You might want to consider:

- Just because you don't want to follow the recruiter's advice, it doesn't mean it's a 'stupid book'.

- Although the recruiter mentioned 'programming problems', the problems in the book may test a wider (or just different) range of skills than what you (or I) consider 'programming'

- The fact that you've 'never prepped for a tech interview' may have impacted the set of environments in which you have worked, and it may be hard to know whether you would enjoy working in those places where preparation is 'table stakes' (i.e. necessary but not sufficient) for success.

- Companies that interview in ways that require/expect some preparation might be (intentionally or unintentionally) filtering out candidates who are not willing to do what is required to achieve their aims. (If you're not willing to spend a few hours with a book to increase your chances of landing a great job for the next 2-3 years, then maybe you wouldn't be willing to learn whatever JS library is required to succeed at your next project.)

You and I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting. But I know other people with 10+ years of coding experience, and the majority would improve their chances of succeeding at a given interview loop, by preparing using 'cracking the coding interview'.

> would improve their chances of succeeding at a given interview loop, by preparing

It seems to me that you're presupposing that "success" equates to ending up with an offer.

I posit that for some professionals, success is actually deciding (ideally mutually) if employment is desirable/beneficial. The decision may well be that it is not, but that would still be a success.

In this latter situation, preparation time might be better spent researching the background of the team on would be joining, the company itself, and technical and cultural environment, in order to ask better questions during the interview, rather than studying so as to achieve what could be, arguably, described as gaming the technical screening portion of the process.