>> This is happening across the board because it's a buyer's market for labor.

In my region in the Midwest, we have several well known companies that have been doing this for a very long time. They basically promote the same insane hiring process and then compare their companies hiring process to getting admitted to Harvard - they actually say they're hiring standards are more stringent than Harvard's.

The other funny thing is these same companies who hold themselves out as "elite" pay 30-40% less than market rate. So in essence, you go through some insane hiring process, jumping through all the hoops, and you're still going to end up in a job that pays 30% less than every other company doing two or three interviews before hiring someone.

Will this ever change back? Probably when market dynamics change back in the favor of developers, which could be a very long time. I wholeheartedly believe the "gold rush" of the tech industry has ended. Gone are the days where you had 4-5 different companies vying for your talent year after year after year. The whole industry feels like its contracting.