If any of the candidates they are refusing are capable of doing the daily work at a FANG but can't pass the interview, they're artificially constraining their supply of candidates and increasing the cost they need to pay for developers for absolutely no reasons.
The type of work in a FANG is mostly not that dissimilar to other companies (the exception being teams working with machine learning, performance optimization, dealing with tricky scale). I understand hiring specialists for specialist jobs (and I still wouldn't test them on leetcode; ask domain specific questions).
> It's just ego driven over spending on developers.
It's worth considering that engineering interviews are largely conducted by other engineers, and engineering hiring bars are largely set by senior engineering staff. They have a pretty vested interest in maintaining their own status and (relative) scarcity. Constantly raising the technical interview bar keeps engineers a supply-constrained resource...
They artificially restricting the supply of viable candidates, but this gatekeeping happens whenever engineers want (sometimes subconciously) to limit the competition and protect their high wages.
> they're artificially constraining their supply of candidates and increasing the cost they need to pay for developers for absolutely no reasons.
The incorrect hidden assumption is that by decreasing your own supply the value goes up.
It's well known that turning down candidates or refusing to interview them sends the message that their skill are less valuable. It's HR management 101.
The same goes for "anti-poaching" agreement. If FAANGs don't hire from each other they reduce the number of high-paying employers willing to hire the average FAANG employee, effectively reducing average salaries.
If any of the candidates they are refusing are capable of doing the daily work at a FANG but can't pass the interview, they're artificially constraining their supply of candidates and increasing the cost they need to pay for developers for absolutely no reasons.
The type of work in a FANG is mostly not that dissimilar to other companies (the exception being teams working with machine learning, performance optimization, dealing with tricky scale). I understand hiring specialists for specialist jobs (and I still wouldn't test them on leetcode; ask domain specific questions).
It's just ego driven over spending on developers.