This is not a politically correct thing to say but there is a class of neurodiverse software developers who display these characteristics and I suspect the author belongs to this group.
You have to be able to pick your battles. Sometimes people are in the wrong teams. Sometimes they are just assholes who think they are always right. Too often the "right thing" is subjective.
Nope, nothing got cut. My post stands as I wrote it. It is not ad-hominem and not what-aboutery. It is very much a reasonable question to ask what they use their much-touted AI on and how this relates to the well documented privacy concerns around Google.
"Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai (who believes AI is “more profound than electricity or fire”) has emphasized that Google is an “AI-first” company, with the company seeking to implement machine learning in nearly everything do"
The best idea is to not use their services. Switch from Windows to Linux, de-google and if you must use Android keep the data on your phone to a minimum.
Questions about tests. I have found consistently that when an interviewer does not know what the test coverage of their codebase is, more likely than not they don't care about such trivialities.
No matter how respectable the company might look on the outside, the codebase is an incorrigible mess built by cowboys and they will expect you to maintain it.
I used a few over the years. Boleh, Nord, PIA, etc.
One day I woke up and realised I do not know who runs those companies. For example, Nord is registered in Panama, a country where declaring company ownership is not mandatory. Why should I trust them with my data?
After a little digging I found that Proton is the only VPN provider whose owners have put their names and reputations on the the line. The only one.
It doesn't mean I trust them 100%. But if someone is willing to put their face on their website, I'd say it gives them an extra incentive to do their job right.
As a developer with 10 years' worth of professional experience, I can tell you your career prospects are pretty good. If you actually like programming and think you have an aptitude for it, I would even go as far as to say your prospects are excellent. Hell, you found hackernews, you already have a leg up.
Don't worry too much about emerging technologies or trends. Some seem to be higher paid, but I would recommend finding one or two paths you like and sticking with them. Most of them are as in demand as they have ever been and are largely immune to automation.
To prepare for any career in programming: write lots to code, do it now! It will likely be crap code, don't worry, everyone started writing crap code, eventually you get better at it. Read a lot of code, you will not understand most of it, try anyway.
The more you do the above, the more you will know what is going on, the more people you will find with similar interests and eventually you may find a mentor, too.
As for "cubicle slave", you may have to start from there, it doesn't mean you have to stay there.
A red flag regarding the nature of the company. No interview shows lack of diligence. If there is no diligence about who they let in, what else are they not diligent about?
Frankly, reminds me of Michael O'Church