The problem with tech interviews is that it’s super rare to find the right combination of elite technical skills and emotional intelligence required to properly assess a candidate. Those people are usually busy.

What you end up with is someone who is either a mid-level engineer and almost totally green to recruiting or an HR drone with zero technical skills who is liable to believe a bunch of bullshit. Both tend to ask stupid interview questions they learned from a book because they’re out of their depth in some way.

This is not a situation unique to software either; it affects nearly every professional specialization (especially ones where the pay gap between an HR role and a functional role is as big as it is in tech). You’re right, it makes zero sense to put your interviewer on the defensive — being likable is almost always more important than being good.