Civil engineers have to take physics, and geology, and surveying... and crucially a PE exam after graduation. One is not really an engineer until that's out of the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

Yes, testing the ability to do tasks related to the actual job is refreshing.

Similarly, fizzbuzz is generally massively more useful than whatever silly CS problems people are asking in interviews.

I use fizzbuzz and character counts (histograms) as my primary weapons.

If they pass that since i'm usually looking for iOS developers they get a simple app with poor table view scroll performance and are asked to improve the performance of it.

Sure, but I wouldn't ask anyone with more than a few years experience implementing parallel distributed file systems to tap out fizzbuzz in an onsite.

Edit: This is part of the problem - an Engineer is fundamentally different from a Developer, even if there is significant overlap.

Agreed fizz buzz is the "phone screen". App onsite.

agreed, in Canada software engineering is a degree that teaches you software methodology,design patterns, project management, QA/testing, and general algorithms.

I think I can make a pretty safe bet that you are not involved with HR.

HR and me are like sodium and water.