> That said, I'm always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they're proud of.
I have trouble recalling the details of things I worked on even say a week ago sometimes. I also don't find most of the work I do that interesting as I've been coding along time solving the same kinds of problems. However to play the game i would of course brush up for questions like that, and be quite convincing.
> I have trouble recalling the details of things I worked on even say a week ago sometimes.
No problem here, it probably wasn't very exciting but have you never encountered something which stuck in your mind? Or that you could at least recall some part of a project if someone asked "So, you've written here that you've worked on project xy and did this and that, can you tell us a bit more about it"?
Asking about project xy is different though, it's more guided. I think it's much easier to answer than the really open ended ones that ask you to pick an incident from all 10-15 years of your work history: the field there is so wide that unless I've specifically considered the question in advance I'm likely to sit there going ummm for a bit.
In general I think the question format favours people with a good memory for anecdotes and story telling ability.
I have trouble recalling the details of things I worked on even say a week ago sometimes. I also don't find most of the work I do that interesting as I've been coding along time solving the same kinds of problems. However to play the game i would of course brush up for questions like that, and be quite convincing.