In contrast, at another interview I got given a take-home assignment that I almost didn't want to do because it felt like the kind of work I would do in my day job and I didn't want to do that in the evening or my time off. That task, on the other hand, probably measures infinitely better how effective I am on the job.
Not just "practically zero" - but like, "for sure zero". As in, there is absolutely zero chance you would need to solve a problems like this (or Sudoku, etc) in the course of actual engineering work.
It's a bullshit question, essentially.
You're better off giving someone a more realistic take home test and have them walk you through it during the interview. You'd get a better feel for what their "real" code looks like when they're under less pressure, how they communicate while presenting their solution, etc.
I'm assuming you were hired to write code, so I suspect your ability to write code in an interview is at least somewhat relevant.
I agree that, if you're hiring someone who will primarily be managing others or, maybe, architecting some systems, without doing the actual implementation (which, btw, I think is a suboptimal way of doing things), then you shouldn't test their coding. But if you're hiring someone to code, you need to check they understand how strings, memory, dynamic programming etc works.
> Testing whether I can find the longest palindrome subsequence of a string optimally via a tabular or memoized dynamic programming solution in 20
Unfortunately, if there are many more potential employees then you're going to be a beggar no matter what. If you're applying to companies who only get a few applicants per position, then you have leverage and the companies actually have to look for quality.
Unfortunately, a lot of smaller companies simply cargo cult on BigCo hiring, as that's all they know. I see smaller companies who have unfilled positions for 12 months or more, because they apply the same method to hiring as the company with hundreds or thousands of applicants.
And interviewing at a very selective company doesn't need to negate your belief in your own value. If you could be the top applicant at some other company but you interview at a company that might not even hire you, then applying there should be a choice that you're making because the trade-off is somehow beneficial to you. Your value within the overall job market remains, and you can always walk away.
When that shift happens depends on the company and what the team is hiring for.