Strong disagree; it is not always this way. I'm no celebrity, and I flail at adversarial technical whiteboard exercises, but I've been paid well to do software-related things for over 20 years. Maybe in part because I insist on treating every interview as bi-directional. It is not necessary to accept a "please may I have this job" attitude towards a potential employer. Software developers are radically more empowered than many of them (us) realize, and IMHO part of the reason so many corporate hiring processes for technical roles are so brutal is that it reinforces the mindset of subservience and is an effective way to assert and maintain dominance. [In the US some of this is a structural problem tied to larger concerns like health insurance being tied to employment, which tips the scales of power, putting employees in a position where they may actually need the employer more than the other way around...]
TLDR if you don't think you're interviewing the company too, you're doing yourself a big disservice and selling yourself short.
if you don't think you're interviewing the company too, you're doing yourself a big disservice and selling yourself short.
Absolutely.
But outside of places like SV or NYC, there may not be a lot of jobs available. For someone with a similar length of career, I'm not as flexible about being able to move to where there are more jobs. Is one just SOL when trying to improve their career; take what you can get?
In the top 10 metro areas in the US outside of SV or NYC, there are still plenty of openings at any given time - speaking as someone who has spent 20+ years in Atlanta.
TLDR if you don't think you're interviewing the company too, you're doing yourself a big disservice and selling yourself short.