If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’.  Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer.  Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could be asked any question, and my ability to answer is it being ranked against other candidates.  Maybe someone else _just_ did a similar question in another interview and it’s fresh on his mind.  Maybe someone spend their entire career focusing on just this type of problem given in the interview, but the question in the interview is only partly related to the actual job.