It’s odd to me how people complain so much about being asked to write code (whiteboard, take-home, leetcode puzzles) in order to land a coding job.
Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions?
Is a prospective employer supposed to suss this out entirely through verbal questions?
Yes
It's really not that hard to ask questions that evaluate a candidate's ability without devolving into trivia
Programming is merely logical thought converted into a terse form that a computer can execute
Ask how to solve a problem; ask what needs to be considered to solve it; ask what corner cases does the initial answer not cover; ask for something like a confidence interval on how likely you think errors will happen (and how you plan to respond to them); ask how the program needs to change when you convert it from a cgi-bin/ C program to Ruby or PHP or Go; ask how a solution looks different in any two of the languages the candidate knows/likes
Would you only hire a surgeon after they demonstrate an appendectomy? Would you hire a mechanic only after they demonstrate building a transmission from spare parts?
I think these tests are a good way to have people without previous experience or formal education prove themselves. If you have skills, but no credentials, no public Git[la|hu]b, and no experience, you can still prove yourself with one of these programming tests. However, once someone has a year or so of experience or has finished formal education, the decision should be based on their credentials and the interview, not some kind of demonstration.
It's still silly to expect to have to work for you for free. You can discuss technical topics (design experience, programming language preferences, etc.) without doing a whole exercise. Honestly, it's insulting that people will ask you to come in for an interview and basically tell you that they don't believe what you've put on your resume and start quizzing you to confirm that you know what you claim you know.
I've also had interviews which just talk about work I've done before. Most industries only need that, and I'm coming around to those being the more valuable questions.
I invest 6h of my time as a highly paid engineer to do a home assignment and at best I receive a reply "sorry we found a candidate that's a better fit?".
That's what's unacceptable.