I am a software developer and designer for 16 years. Worked in corporations, small companies, startups and as a software consultant. Also had a company that hired software developers. I can answer this question.

I will write why some companies ask unrealistic dev questions, why it is silly and why it's not a problem.

When studying I wanted to become intern at Microsoft in the US. After 5-hour travel to the interview I was glad because i was about to meet my dev hero these days. He was holding the interview.

Until this time i was active at college dev groups hosting a lots of them. Also served a lots to people learning programming at online dev groups. So i had some basic dev knowledge.

Interview started. It was so fast. I had like 10 questions, one by one, about other languages than interview was about, about some very nerdy dillema only maybe 10 people thought had answer to. The interview ended like in 15 minutes. No talk. Just shooting with questions. The interview ended and I went to travel 5 hours back to home.

My world just collapsed. I was shocked. I felt ashamed i didn't know the answers. I surely had to know them. Was dissapointed of myself and felt it was really stupid thing to imagine such company would take such an idiot like me as a intern.

But it was one side of the coin.

One thing was i felt my guru just didn't care and it felt like he was just showing off and wanted to show how little i know.

I didn't feel like my guru was in any way interested in my humble person. Like i was no one. Not like I was expecting anything special. Just anything people normally do to make a kindly connection. Heck. Sentence like "I have some questions for you" would make it a lots nicer.

So it was it. I suppose I dont need to write I didn't get the internship. Eventually it turned out to end up great for me because i found better job. And guru? Well… guru was off my list.

Maybe i don't know everything. Also maybe I can not think straight while in stress. But also i would not like to work in a company like this. In a company where my guru happens to be a jerk. Where people are treated like trash. Where motivation to learn is not valuable.

Of course Microsoft is a big company. Everyone who works there is a great dev, later I learned about it and am sure it is true. But one person represents a company, even if the judgement is not fair for everyone. Emotions are not rational.

Once and then I read some tricky dev questions. Interviewers with no dev backgroud also find tricky questions and test devs like they had to work every day to find new solutions to the Trolley problem.

But the don't need to.

Dev is not about solving tricky nerdish puzzle or working in high stress.

Stress testing during interview is the best. Interviewer tests if a candidate handles high level of stress to check if you will be fine. What does this tell us about the company?…

Software development is about finding solutions to real world problems. There are enough of these to make up new ones.

To sum it up…

A lots of interview questions are just nerdish way to show off, other are to see how you react to stress and rarely these are to test knowledge or being able to find it.

In my opinion two first types of questions are stupid.

An interview is a stress. Nerdish questions just add up to it. If an interviewer adds stress its just a pity. He is so disconnected. Does not know how it is to be interviewed.

How the interview is held tells a lots about a company. If a company cares about people, how the person will end up and who become after years of working there.

So yes. Some interview questions are very silly and very bad. Bad for the company reputation and for interviewee self value. But it is not a big deal (kinda).

There are a lots of companies with great culture. Where cooperation, team work, balance, knowledge and ability to learn are important.

Where people are important. Where people are not drained. And work there can be a lots better than in other ones.

Upvote and follow if company culture is important to you!