Their idea of average is going to be unique to that company. If they've got some objective test that ranks you accurately, they've got a multi-billion dollar process on their hands. If we had this test, we'd know what to train for, and we'd all become the average developer but write less bugs and better code. It'd become the standard test for developers.

In many cases, companies just want you to sell yourself and hear the right things. Most companies know they can't hire a senior FAANG developer for $110k.

I disagree, solid programmers should be the core of the team. That's how you make solid progress and deliver projects on time.

Programming is about doing the fundamentals well and consistently delivering