That's also something I keep hearing in anecdotes.

The main reason I publish them publicly is ... I don't know why actually. However, one benefit to public github repositories is I can try out various services that are free for open source projects. This way I have exposure to these services which is nice. Also it is easier to get help from others or ask questions when I get stuck.

In my experience, I've found programmers very helpful as long as I am willing to put in some effort.

Unique talent was what I was specifically looking for. Since my company paid "competitive" (i.e. "low") wages, I had to look for "diamonds in the rough." We did interview some highly qualified people, but they tended to defer, when offered.

I feel that I was quite successful, and kept highly talented engineers for many years, but it made the search challenging.

"Cookie cutter testing" wasn't even an option. I'd have been crazy to ignore every advantage each unique applicant had to offer.

I suspect some scammer was running a game on you. They tend to go "over the top," as "dumbass filters." If someone responds credulously to an outrageous claim, then they are a "good mark." The fact they ghosted you, tells me it was a scam. I have encountered many, many scammers, since leaving my last job. It's a pretty tough field, these days.

One of the reasons that I stopped looking for work, was because a lot of hiring managers and recruiters believe that it's important to insult applicants, right out of the starting gate. I think that HR policy, in general, these days, is to always keep the applicant in a supplicant position, so you are in control of the relationship. I think that LeetCode tests are part of that game. Sort of like "hazing."

What would be the purpose of this “scam”?

It may be as basic as getting you to open an infected document, of some kind. We tend to exchange a lot of stuff, when we do employment negotiations. I'd think an engineering manager, at a sensitive level, would be a juicy target. I've had any number of LinkedIn attempts to get at me, through offers of employment, basic networking, and attempts to get me to employ (I have a title as a CEO of a couple of 1-person companies, so I get a lot of these types of attempts).

My favorite ones, are the "attractive young women" that want to "link up" with me. I'll bet a lot of folks fall for that.

So you can know if it's really their portfolio.

Just asking some basic questions about the code in the portfolio will make it clear pretty quickly if it's their work or not.

Instead of wasting time with somebody floundering tests and offering excuses, or even have a cringe situation. That is why i also like the portfolio candidate.

Also, there's nothing stopping someone from copy/pasting entire projects into their portfolio.

I would totally ignore someone's portfolio when interviewing them.

Too bad. you look like an interesting chap to know.

Accountants don't have "portfolios", interviewers don't ask to see their spreadsheets. Managers don't have saved video recordings of 1:1 employee meetings for interviewers to look over. Engineers don't have a sample set of bridges they've built [0].

Artists (and by extension, designers) are the only other profession where you're expected to have a portfolio of your work for a prospective interviewer to look at.

I guess what I'm trying to say with "I'd ignore the portfolio" is that if we're going to emulate another profession, let's copy the engineers, not the artists. Artists are typically underpaid and undervalued. Engineers are highly respected professionals.

[0] well, they might have photographs of the actual bridges, but not a sample selection of actual bridges. For some reason I can't point an interviewer at a previous employer's app and say "I built that" like an engineer can.

Engineers are mostly standardized, and the salary range reflects that. There are some very well compensated engineers, but the bulk do okay, doing normal work.

And critically, a board certified engineer stamp is an engineering stamp. Regardless of who it comes from.

On the other hand, artist compensation is directly correlated to ability to market yourself, current trends, and overall skill.

You have artists who are struggling to make it a job (in our world: entry level web design, analysts), artists who are doing okay with careers (enterprise software dev), entrepreneurual artists (startups), and superstars.

And critically... their degrees tell you almost nothing about which category they're going to be in.

But most aren't. Most devs clock in, write some code, clock out, go home, do something completely different. It's a job. They operate inside the salary bands of their organisation, and they do okay, doing normal work.

And specifically, when there are no signals that can be normalized across candidates for comparison.

I feel like that's pretty descriptive of most general software development.

So artists and designers aren't? There might be a few folks around these parts that might take issue with that. I was once an artist, and that training has been of significant value, in my engineering.

I list Adobe Illustrator as one of the 4 applications that I use every day (along with Xcode, BBEdit, and SourceTree). It's what I use to generate graphic assets for my development work.

Anyway, we could dance this jig all day, and I don't think it would solve any pressing world issues. Not a big deal. We don't need to prove anything to each other.

Yes, agreed. It's not worth getting too bothered by it ;)