Not a license to practice, but how about some sort of exam I can pass that would let me never have to do the whiteboard dance ever again?

As it is, I'm basically studying for an unknown and nowhere near standard "certification", more or less, in the form of the technical interview, with only an inkling of what I might have to study for every single interview I go on.

I guarantee my career has been stunted because I delay my job search because I just don't want to go through that bullshit all over again, and stick with jobs long after I've stopped being passionate about them, despite there being a huge demand for software engineers.

Not everyone has to take the standardized exam, but if you do, you can show that to someone and they go "okay, I'm going to skip the technical pop quiz, let's move on to other things".

That's supposed to be what my degree was for, but apparently no one trusts that anymore, so why did I waste the time and money in the first place?

The whiteboard standard already acts like a de facto license.

Algorithmic/data structure more theory-oriented problems are unrepresentative of "actual work" and are annoying, but what's more annoying is how the process is 1) opaque, and 2) repetitive. So you end up with candidates grinding through 80+ Leetcode problems to both master the skills necessary to ace these problems, as well as covering as many commonly-asked problems in a bid to game the system by preempting their interviewees questions. Goodhart's law abounds. This basically makes the process into an interview version of standardized testing. But- despite the standard prep process and a standard bank of questions, it can all easily fall apart because of subjective interviewer opinion, and so all the preparation is for naught. Candidates end up having to do the interview gauntlet for each company they apply at.

So standardize it. Put out clear, industry-standard rubrics for how one's performance is graded. Don't say "we only want to know how you think" and then ding candidates for not getting the right solution. You obviously care about the right answer as much as the thought process- don't be disingenuous about it. Maybe even standardize the level of difficulty of problems. And most of all:

Make this process a one-time thing.

Or rather, a once every five year thing. Outsource the ds/a interviewing section to a third party testing organization, like what Triplebyte is attempting to do, and have the actual interview be personalized to the company. Ask domain specific questions, relevant experience questions, system design, and culture fit questions during the company interview. And leave the DS/A portion be akin to the licensure tests that other engineering disciplines and STEM professions already have.

Software engineers may hate credentialism, but if it's a credential that you only need to take once or twice in a decade, then it's already far superior to the current system that forces candidates to undergo this each time they change jobs.

There's a difference between licensing and certification. A license is when the government says you need to meet some requirements to practice. A certification is when some entity, usually a board or industry group certifies that you are good enough at your job. We don't need licensing, but it would be great if we had broadly accepted certifications for software development. Even if you believe in FANG style interviews, ideally you should be able to pass one time and have it be accepted by every company. Once you have the certification, we could do interviews that focus on the type of things that individual teams and companies care about.

You do not have to be a CPA to be an accountant. a CPA is an accountant who can sign off on financial statements for an auditing firm.

Sure, why not.