The interview process is highly highly biased towards recent grads (algorithm/data-structure courses) and the kind of people who do super well in university show-and-tell.
But they put up with it because it's a career and not a job. Many of them couldn't handle a minimum wage or working class job. No breaks, short lunches, no wriggle room for life, permanent fast-tracks to firing.
But they were mostly being paid handsomely to apply those amazing skills to really humdrum tasks -- but painting them up to be really profound -- and that's the saddest thing.
