Sahat I agree completely. I’m stunned by the interview questions I’ve seen over almost four (count ’em, 4) decades of writing code. I build and ship products on multiple mobile and web platforms and I’ve been asked questions about things I’ve never had the occasion to use in all of that time.

The ability of the interviewee to trot out solutions to textbook college problems says nothing about their ability to learn new things, or to deliver product.

I get that companies need to weed out people who just can’t do the job, but this is not the way. I too prefer the take-home interview assignments, but then again I value my time and prefer not to expend it doing free work.

If people can see your code on github, touch it, and use it, that should be a pretty good indicator of what you can do. Testing you on things you might never use in real life certainly isn’t.