shoulder-track

The problem here is that for lots of big projects, there are typically only so many people who really drive the project to the completion. If you work for a big bank, you'd actually have a couple of people like you and a dozen of bystanders who lend a hand here or there, but are barely competent. They will have exactly the same resume as you, and it might even look more impressive. But their 20 years of experience in development is really just a couple of years played over 10 times.

So when hiring, I don't care if you're slow and methodical, or super fast. What I care about is that you understand basic algorithms and data structure (lists, sets, maps, trees) and can apply them to simple problems without me telling you that using a hash map here will speed up the solution tremendously, or using a heap will simplify the code. Those simple problems are also taken from most common patterns we see in our codebase, which consists of lots of geospatial data processing and analysis.

And if you need more than an hour to solve a couple of those simple problems (let's say, find duplicates between two lists), you'll definitely have a problem fitting in with the rest of the team - since everyone on the team has solved those problems and agrees that we need people with at least this basic algorithm knowledge to be able to make a significant contribution here.

These questions also a first hour of the interview, the rest goes deeply into discussion of previous projects you made, different architectural patterns, etc.

50k+ employee companies already work remote. They got dozens of offices all over the world, and bunch of projects I did for these large companies involved me coming in to an office so I can be on the call with people in different offices - which is pretty idiotic and can be just as effectively done from home.

And catered meals/snacks are not the norm there either - instead, you smelling microwaved fish Bob brought for lunch, plus Karen is babbling away about how her kid didn't get into the honors program. You don't have an office, you're sitting next to bunch of other people who keep talking, walking, watching funny Youtube videos. The best option is to come in late and work late so you have a somewhat distraction-free workplace to yourself - which again is pretty idiotic.

And the communication is not really that much harder, it's actually gets much easier and streamlined the more you WFH. You learn to focus on what matters, you learn to present your thoughts coherently and in an engaging manner as people need to understand you and listen to you even though they don't see you and no one even knows whether they are listening to you or not.