I noticed that my Google interview process was way more involved in reverse engineering (read this code and figure out what it does, or what's wrong with it), whereas Facebook was much more leetcody.

I've been thinking that reverse engineering skills are much more useful than puzzle solving.

> I noticed that my Google interview process was way more involved in reverse engineering

I had such a question at Google. I guessed what was the problem they were trying to solve as it was a classic leetcode question (linking nodes in a tree while traversing it). So while the format is a bit different than typical leetcode solving, I'd say it's still the same type of skills and preparation involved (at least in my case).

There's value in white board interviews. Candidates can't cheat their way through them. I realised the value in them during the lockdowns when interviews went online and I found that a few candidates were cheating. Sadly the interviewer guidelines at the company I was working at that time, explicitly forbade me from writing anything about candidates cheating in the interview feedback, and instead required you to just "notify" the recruiter about it. The gradient of the falling hiring bar, only got steeper.

Also, the bit about puzzles, leetcode is somewhat of a myth, mostly perpetuated by salty candidates who couldn't pass tech interview loops, for whatever reason. Puzzles were explicitly banned at Meta and Google, when I worked there, and if a question is found on leetcode or a similar site (as they eventually do), they'd get banned too. The idea isn't to make candidates jump through a series of pointless hoops, but to concretely evaluate their coding and reasoning abilities. It's certainly not perfect, but it's a lot more BS proof that just having a chat or take home assignments. Also, needless to say, more senior candidates are expected to successfully grapple with harder problems.

>Sadly the interviewer guidelines at the company I was working at that time, explicitly forbade me from writing anything about candidates cheating in the interview feedback

Why?

The interviewer could have honestly made a mistake thinking the candidate cheated when the candidate did not. Or the candidate thought something was allowed but the interviewer did not communicate that it was not.

At any rate, there's a chance the accusation was wrong, and if you make wrong accusations and the other person disputes it, it could lead to unnecessary legal proceedings. (libel, etc.)

PS: not saying the company policy by the GP is necessarily correct, just saying what lawyers and risk adverse bureaucrats might be thinking when they drafted it.