I’ve seen this “stress ≠ skill” gap play out again and again. The Microsoft study the OP cites is brutal. Yet most prep advice (“just grind LeetCode”) still ignores the cortisol factor.

One thing that’s helped me, as both an occasional interviewer and a frequent interviewee, is recreating the stress loop on my own terms. Friends rarely push hard enough, and a paid coach is $150+ an hour. Lately I’ve been working on a little side-project Tough Tongue AI: a voice-driven agent that drops you into a live code editor, throws follow-up questions, even interrupts when you go off-road, then gives a feedback at end. It’s not magic, but after a few sessions the “somebody’s watching me” adrenaline spike starts to feel familiar.

If live coding interviews are here to stay, a repeatable way to train the physiological side of the test, not just the algorithms would be helpful!