And there's no easy objective way to screen for this in a job interview. So they pretend it doesn't exist and never ask questions like: "Suppose you're designing a green-field app that you think will grow over time like X, Y, and Z. How would you design and organize your code so that the app stays maintainable and flexible over time?"

I could talk for hours on this subject with concrete examples if anyone ever asked.

I think another problem is that there are so few engineers/architects who really "get it" on this subject. I can only think of a few ex-coworkers with whom I could have the kind of in-depth conversation about app design and organization that I'm picturing.

I've never worked in big tech, always for startups or non-tech corps with a few rock star devs and a lot of decent devs. So maybe it's different at a FAANG. But in my head I'm picturing a bunch of algo-geniuses whose code turns into a big mess over time when requirements take a right-turn and break all their beautiful abstractions. I've worked on a few apps like that and it's not fun.

I think this is why people job hop. They never have to support their unmaintainable greenfield app. Without the pain of those mistakes, they never learn to make the next one better either.

Nothing on interviews is objective to begin with, so we can discount that.

Your template sounds like a fine way to ask such a question. I think the issue is managers or someone above simply don't want to invest in proper interview questions and instead just do that FAANG does. Even though very few companies need such core algorithmic knowledge but need people who can properly navigate legacy code. FAANGs will actually make sure new hires learn the code base, unlike many companies thst want you to "hit the ground running".

> successfully maintain a legacy code base (even their own!).

Haha I hate all the code I wrote more than 5 years ago.