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I do not work in software, so I find how hiring works in it really odd. The amount of weight put on the interview compared to accreditation is unusual, and people in this thread consider that normal. There's no certification or examination for minimum competency. Looking online, there were attempts at making one, but they failed. How did it come to be this way?

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I suspect the very horrible interviews at top-comp places exist in no small part to make it painful to switch between them, to reduce upward pressure on wages. I think it's version 2.0 of the earlier wage-fixing scheme they got busted for. That's why even a rigorous standardized examination isn't acceptable as a replacement for their painful interviews, even though spending all that time on whiteboard quiz interviews is expensive—the pain is much of the point.

That makes sense, thanks. Only way an examination could come about would be with their collaboration.

Everything about software and software employment is kinda odd. The most relevant college degree is fairly irrelevant to the actual experience and skills necessary to succeed in industry. The field is the result of a merger between rarified theory (computation as applied mathematics) and hands-on practice (organizing sand to conduct electricity in useful ways). There's a high proportion of practitioners without any formal training. The industry has existed for about a half-century, and now more than half of the top ten companies by market cap are software companies.

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