Software Engineers are getting turned off by the current Industry Recruiting SPAM and Bad Interviewers.

Takes two to tango.

Increasingly, senior software engineers refuse to take coding tests in hiring processes. Why is this happening and becoming more frequent post-pandemic?

I think the most crucial reason that legitimate "senior or seasoned" developers/engineers do this is because they feel their time is wasted. Misaligned recruiting spam and overloaded job descriptions are just the apexes of the iceberg, compounding a growing problem.

Taking a Coding Challenge during an interview: The Senior Software Engineer Context [Global Consensus]?

It takes a lot of time to prepare to ace it. — Coding interviews are tough to prepare for in-depth because they draw from so many different areas of software development.?

Two factors exacerbate the problem for senior engineers. Their education was more distant than the workplace, where they might have encountered esoteric software development concepts (dynamic programming, recursion, red-black trees, e.g.).

It can take significant time to refresh their memory on various algorithms and data structures. Due to their demanding jobs and personal commitments, senior engineers often lack time. In particular employers, senior engineers discussed the interview process but declined to participate due to the coding interview size and length.

It usually happens through one or more of these basic ideas, although the way it happens varies:

1. There are subtle ways to create lousy job ads, such as requiring ten years of experience for something that has been around for five years [This is hilarious and sad at the same time]. I am referring to advertisements that are generally fine but could be improved and have negative ramifications during the hiring process.
2. It is essential to recognize that egregious coding challenges can be categorized into two categories: the "I am Google/Facebook/Apple" challenges (such as data structures, etc.) and the "let's solve real problems" challenges, you know, the type.?
3. During the coding test, red flags can be anything, from something that shouldn't be used at all and should instead be encouraged (for example, using + to concatenate strings in C# or Java, particularly in loops) to something that isn't necessarily bad, but is highly problematic (such for instance the singleton pattern: though it has some uses, you should avoid it whenever possible).
4. The company red flag is this: if you have a coding test, you probably have a developer team or are building one. In turn, this means you have structure, and structure is essential. Knowing who is present at each stage is crucial during the hiring process. During the coding test, it matters who is guiding you and who is giving hints and asking questions. In the worst-case scenario, these people will have to help us in a firefight (what if we need help fighting a fire?). This is usually a process killer since the ones you want are those who reject anything that doesn't seem right.
5. In addition to your attitude towards them, those interviewing with you will also consider your approach: they know the interview is a two-way process: you're interviewing them while they're evaluating you.

There may also be senior developers who dislike the concept of "senior" and would prefer to be called "Lead" or "Principal" because if they are interviewing with you, they may come across to be "juniors" in some ways, and they are ok with that. More important is how well both parties align with each other to tackle a clear business objective, relative technology stack, and architectural strategy that delivers certainty, continuity, and predictability to meet today's market demand.?

Remember, they are also interviewing you and the company.