I'm absolutely terrible at tech interviews, despite being a software engineer and actual architect for around 5-10 years. I constantly fix major security issues in legacy code, optimize it, and work with the senior devs in multiple languages to create new solutions. I've filled the gap as a tech lead, and frequently have to just figure out a new language in days. I naturally learn language nuances, best practices, I'm easy to work with, I know how to implement things and work across teams, technologies and departments. Learning is what I'm great at, not necessarily coding. I have extensive experience leaning towards hacker-like work in addition to software engineering. I'm legitimately, at worst, decent, with the capability to be exceptional in multiple areas. I'm generally a jack of all trades.

I go to a tech interrogation and when I ask for clarification on the question, I get an under the breath "jesus christ, I need to explain this to you?" If I don't ask to clarify, I get "Oh, well he didn't ask for more details. I guess he's rushing without thinking! He's bad at communication. Gottem! Next." I can't take a minute to read the question because the interrogator is screaming that I'm not constantly talking. If there's a literal 10 second gap in talking, I get a "Hello? Are you still there? Hello? What are you doing?" You have to memorize the leetcode questions that are always asked so you're able to talk over them. That doesn't demonstrate any skills.

When I get to actual coding, I've automatically failed an otherwise perfect whiteboarding session because I had a lowercase letter instead of an uppercase one. "Ha, gottem! He doesn't know the difference between an object and a variable!"

I'm not the best at writing code from scratch but I'm decent in a business practice. I'm exceptional at improving code from any skill level, and adopt that quality in my own code naturally. This has 0 value during an interview though. The only thing that matters during interviews is how many of the classic pattern questions you've memorized. All the amazing work I've done is invalidated because I can't instantly write a perfect meme code question.

I come on the internet to articles like this for help or to see anyone else who got stuck in my position, and there's always someone like you here. "Wrong. You're not a real engineer because you can't even answer an easy level leetcode question without stumbling on something. I guess you're not a real engineer. You're just a worthless fake person." I've worked with people like you before. I know because I heard this at my last job from dismissive coworkers either bashing interviewees or other people's code they didn't understand (or understand context around, such as a critical hotfix) in PRs.

You people submit untested code on Friday at 5 before going camping for the week and I have to come in and hotfix your sloppy work. I can pick up what you wrote, see how awful your coding practice is, but understand what you were thinking and fix it. However, just because you memorized the leetcode questions or can think of simple solutions to puzzle questions naturally, I guess you're automatically better than me and I'm basically a skilless idiot.

I try to have a conversation about fixing this or how I might be an unusual edge case and the interviewers are all on my side. I get to the interview and everything I said is dropped. I get a puzzle question in a google docs sheet that tests none of my skills. I understand you need to test if people can code, but all these dismissive gatekeeping methods are slamming me and letting people who just happen to either memorize the questions or they live and breath programming and can weasel through it. Those people, I've noticed, are frequently poorly trained in coding and refuse to change their ways.