It's not a "Tech company thing" it's a "junior engineer who doesn't know how to interview" thing. It is an indicator of a low quality company. Seriously. This is my opinion after 25 years of interviews.
Ask the candidate "Tell me about a project you're passionate about". Find out why. Get them to explain a hard problem they solved. Get them to teach it to you so you understand it.
Find the candidate that can do that and that gives you a good answer and you find a candidate who is passionate about something and can communicate it and understood it well enough to relate it in detail to you on the spot. That's the one to hire.
not the one who memorized quick sort... the former can implement a new quicsort.... the other one will spend all his time on stack overflow asking others to do his work.
I've worked for two of those, beat one in the market, and have a low regard of the quality of engineering at the other two... so yeah, low quality companies. Or at least low quality hiring processes.
One problem that seems pervasive on hacker news is Cargo Cultism. Just because one of those companies does something does not mean that it's a good thing. Some of those companies have really capricious and arbitrary hiring policies.
Don't get starry eyed. Don't confuse a household name for quality. And don't mindlessly copy the broken system of a fortune 500 company for your startup.
I'm an engineer, I'm not just pulling this out of my ass. I've been conducting thousands of interviews over the past decades and had to manage the people I hired with my process.
Ask the candidate "Tell me about a project you're passionate about". Find out why. Get them to explain a hard problem they solved. Get them to teach it to you so you understand it.
Find the candidate that can do that and that gives you a good answer and you find a candidate who is passionate about something and can communicate it and understood it well enough to relate it in detail to you on the spot. That's the one to hire.
not the one who memorized quick sort... the former can implement a new quicsort.... the other one will spend all his time on stack overflow asking others to do his work.