It's not useless at all. We expect people whose answer to everything is "it depends" to answer more or less at random, when they don't have enough information to say otherwise.
That is an extremely telltale signature. Put another way, if your assertion is right, then a simple 5 minute quiz like this should be enough to rule out people who are claiming to be senior, but who actually arrive at extreme answers. A 5 minute quiz like that would be worth tens of millions in improving hiring practices.
So either we're all leaving millions of the floor by not building a company around this, stat, or your assertion is just wrong. There can indeed be senior engineers who are nonetheless very principled even in low-context situations.
It’s an easy 5 min screen at most and it’s common knowledge anyway which you can easily fake by answering ‘it depends’ and asking basically random questions. Good enough additional context turns the quiz into a systems design interview, which serves your purpose obviously.
That is an extremely telltale signature. Put another way, if your assertion is right, then a simple 5 minute quiz like this should be enough to rule out people who are claiming to be senior, but who actually arrive at extreme answers. A 5 minute quiz like that would be worth tens of millions in improving hiring practices.
So either we're all leaving millions of the floor by not building a company around this, stat, or your assertion is just wrong. There can indeed be senior engineers who are nonetheless very principled even in low-context situations.