Yes, good hiring managers with sharp vision will always want to hire new grades who is able to write operating systems, compilers or simulators from scratch. Having those essential CS skills are much better than having many buzz words in the resume.
I purchased one in 1984 to learn CP/M and Z-80 assembly on the Apple II. Later I used it to learn Fortran and Turbo Pascal, and finally bought a PCPI Applicard to speed the things up. The Z-80 softcard could be one of the best cards in Apple II's history, IMHO.
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to challenge FANG types of companies -- you have to practice at least 200 leetcode problems, and able to solve two medium level problems in 45 mins. So practice more and efficiently is the key to success.
Can you do Leetcode medium level problems bug-free in 30 minutes? If yes you can try FAANG. I knew some people of your age (one is 59) were hired by Google -- they are all good in Leetcode.
Companies nowadays want you to be good in domain knowledge but also good to solve Leetcode problems during the interview. Time has changed.
I completely agreed with you. People who hate Leetcode, I am wondering, are those who refuse or lazy to devote hours per day to practice.
Because of covid-19 there are overwhelmed programmers, newbie and veteran on the job market to compete with fewer programming openings. Companies have reasons to be extremely picky, and job seekers either to comply with the game rule (Leetcode) or consider to change career.
And those who have job also need to consider to regularly practice Leetcode (one or two questions per day or every other day) to stay employable.
That kind of UX experience, OSish or design small app whatever can be learned very quick on job. However Leetcode skill is not -- you have to devote 2~3 hours per day to grind and practice.
Personally I am using console2, which is quite good and fits my needs (support multiple tabbed consoles, named title etc). You also can try Cygwin's terminal, and run it inside console2.