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Tech Job Interviews Are Out of Control

Tech companies are famous for coddling their workers but after mass layoffs the industry's culture has shifted. Engineers say that getting hired can require days of work on unpaid assignments.

In one recent interview, Catherine was given a take-home assignment: Build a desktop app from scratch, connect it to a mock-up of a backend system, and provide extensive documentation of each step. Long gone are the days of Google HR managers prompting candidates with clever brain teasers and Silicon Valley engineers easily landing jobs with six-figure starting salaries. In another video posted on YouTube, a programmer shows off a ChatGPT browser extension that helps someone quickly respond to an interview question about whether Javascript is a single-threaded language or a multi-threaded one.

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