> Since they will "assess" where you fit best.

Disclaimer: I work for Google

At Google this just isn't true unless we are talking about new grads. After you pass the interviews, you have to do team matching, where you will have informal 2 way interviews with prospective teams. Only after you find a team that you like and that likes you can you get an offer, assuming your application is approved.

It's definitely not a case of sticking you in a team without your input. It's true that at the interview stage you won't know, but by the time you have an offer you know what team you'll be on.

I believe at Facebook you have even more freedom. You get to go to boot camp for 3 months and after that get to choose what team you want to be on. I haven't worked there so this is just based off what recruiters and friends have told me though so hopefully someone else can correct me or elaborate.

> Entire HN knows it

I don't think that's true. A large portion of companies/hiring managers don't get this, all the way down to actual engineers.

I've come to believe it's largely a "if I had to go through that BS, you do too!" tit for tat thing engineers now play.

Lazy interviewers looking for magic shortcuts / lazy managers not mentoring/teaching/structuring how to dig into candidate ability to solve real, hairy problems quickly and get a window into candidate problem-solving thought-processes. Hiring by random "intuition" is both evidence-free and scatter-gun half-assery that results in wasting everyone's time by not attracting/selecting for great candidates.