Getting a (new) job in IT is an exercise in futility if you don't know someone inside, so essentially there's not an interview but an invitation.
It's lower-status, more degrading and has worser odds than cold-call telemarketers trying to sell you some new credit card.
By the way, when a telemarketer tricks you into answering his call, you don't subject him to a 3-days intensive rectal exam ("homework") just for the remote possibility of getting a new credit card, which at the end you still don't buy anyways on some made-up pretense.
So developers agree to way worse level of abuse and degradation than the lowliest sales guy.
It's lower-status, more degrading and has worser odds than cold-call telemarketers trying to sell you some new credit card.
By the way, when a telemarketer tricks you into answering his call, you don't subject him to a 3-days intensive rectal exam ("homework") just for the remote possibility of getting a new credit card, which at the end you still don't buy anyways on some made-up pretense.
So developers agree to way worse level of abuse and degradation than the lowliest sales guy.