mikepost001

"you can say anything that is not directly illegal in the US without fear of being banned or other mode“

For a non-American, could you explain how this is far right? Sounds pretty liberal.

I agree. Cloud only apps aren't enough for me. I'm starting to look for more apps with macOS offerings, and not just ones that cheaply wrap a webview.

I agree with this sentiment except for your reference to Pivotal Tracker - it's the opposite of “one size fits all”.

It is so ingrained into the particular Agile Scrum way of doing things that this is actually cited as its drawback by teams wanting to be more "flexible".

Are you getting it confused with Jira?

Maybe it's you, in asking irrelevant questions for their experience and/or the role. As touched on by OP.

The fact that you're learning about design patterns, architecture, and even (ugh, ok they still have their value, but hardly) algorithms, means that you'll be a great asset to a company.

Don't undervalue yourself. Many devs I've encountered without any formal training have no interest in learning design patterns, good architecture, and (ugh) algorithms...but not only do you know that the value is in learning these concepts, you are actually taking the next step and learning them. If you steer the interview in a direction of design patterns and algorithms, and showcase that you have knowledge on it, you'll stand out.

"I have published code all over. I code 10+ hours a day, even on the weekends. I get hammered in technical interviews."

Yes, yes, and yes. I've been meaning to blog about this experience (as an update, after last touching on it a few years ago). But I wanted to blog from a position of triumph. You know, "now that I've beaten the coding challenge I can say with conviction what is wrong with the coding challenge". That sort of thing. Except it's becoming obvious that I'll never beat these coding challenges, despite them being completely unsuitable for the role being advertised.

Apart from now, I hit the job market about 2 years ago, and before that another 2 years ago, and there seems to be a lot more of these gatekeepers around now who favour irrelevant coding challenges. Are German or French language teachers rejected on some obscure piece of Latin taught 10 years ago in college, but can't recite perfectly anymore?

The current crop of gatekeepers in tech seem to be a really bizarre mix. I'm having the hardest time in trying to find work this time, despite being more skilled, and having more people skills (hopefully). I'm at a loss.

You might be onto something with people trying to protect their jobs by using these obscure challenges to filter out suitable candidates. It's some kind of negligence. I don't think it's me, or you, but I feel like I'm going crazy. I can do the job, well I think, but the interviews (and perhaps the interviewers) aren't suited to filling the role.