> Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the interview problems I got were often the actual problem I was meant to solve on the job.
Really? In the early 2000s, half the questions I got for dev jobs were completely irrelevant riddles and nonsense like "which US state would you remove?"
Yep,
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the interview problems I got were often the actual problem I was meant to solve on the job. Which is to say that I don't think there's any barrier to coming up with questions like. Of course, if the job is as you describe, putting people through hoops is indeed a way to avoid actually telling people what they'll do.