You still need to practice, you won't be getting easy questions like that all the time. There are tricks you need to know to solve many others.

Generously assuming software engineering is engineering - so you think that mechanical engineers or civil engineers don't reuse solutions 99.99% of the time?

It wouldn't have worked regardless of what they ran it on, it's the runtime that terminates.

This wasn't obvious to me just looking at the problem from a distance, but thankfully testing reduces the level of skill required to get something right :)

That's still not as easy as app payments. There are a number of systems like BLIK in Poland where you have a lower max payment amount, but you just give somebody a temporary 6 digit number and approve the amount they withdraw, that's it. For trusted payment channels you just approve. If you initiate the payment, just give phone number of recipient.

Agreed, but I think for places with a mature payments and debit infrastructure there isn't that much additional business and I suspect most banks' apps will just incorporate that like they do with NFC payments.

Most growth in payments is either new markets or markets that grow a lot, but not completion of rather mature markets (and additional services).

When you compare UPI to western instant payment systems, the most important metrics to look at are consumer choice (banks and experience apps), cost of acceptance, settlement speed and fraud/clawback rates. UPI has broadest interop based consumer choice, free to consumers and lowest cost overall, highest volume of transactions, has fastest settlement and extremely minimal fraud. It is also most inclusive – it works with smartphones, feature phones and soon with only voice calls. It also works offline. And it works for everything from buying a cup of coffee to sending money to your grandma to doing investments in mutual funds and stocks and making large purchases like buying a car.

Compare this to Azure and you'll understand.

This limits your meetings to surface of earth, what if I want to meet with you on Mars?

Even on the surface of the Earth there could be ambiguity. Some places have moved up to four meters in GPS coordinates after an earthquake. In Amsterdam that could be the difference between a war memorial and a brothel.

It's definitely ran by backend engineers judging by piss poor mobile experience (tiny buttons) and contrast ratios.

It definitely won't make you answer any possible interview question, paper tigers often have issues with putting things together, cicd, iam and practical IaC setups.

It's pretty easy to tell theoretical experience from actual experience.

You can do actual practical while studying the certs

But your alerts are on AWS. You take away context from place where it's needed the most.

Do you really think that a company like Microsoft, with a ton of corporate software, couldn't already figure out where you were working based on the information compiled from other sources?

I feel either you didn't grasp the context of my post or I didn't go far enough in detailing why I felt it's an inappropriate feature for them to push.