I don't agree at all. I've definitely been in lair sessions where the other person has been assigned to babysit me to the correct answer. It's just an experience that mostly happens with juniors. I've babysat juniors to the solution myself.

There can also be zero trust between colleagues forced to pair, especially in debug sessions. I have worked a lot of jobs, so maybe it's just my experience, but I would not say that if categorized every single pair session I've had in my entire career anywhere near half involved two colleagues who trusted each other and didn't judge.

I've definitely been judged as a senior for dumb dumb moments and that's okay. If you care about people's opinions too personally as a software engineer, I'm not sure this is the career for you. It's a career that involves a lot of negative feedback even as an experienced professional.

The literal point if interviews it to judge. The point is to find people who will work in the environment you have. I have done work on codebases where bad code means people die, by indirect or direct results. This probably biases me. For example, I have coded in front of a group several times. This year in fact. Sometimes a problem involves multiple people thinking through it. That's probably why I don't care about panel interviews as well. I have had to explain myself in front of a group several times.

These are things that people find stressful, but they are part of my job and have been at nearly every one of the little over half a dozen jobs I have held. My current job isn't even doing anything important. No one dies if I make a mistake and I've still experienced explaining myself in front of a group and coding with several people onlooking. I just assumed that's how the job is as my friends in the same field have similar kinds of stories

People can be stressed I guess, but is normal and common events in your job are highly stressful, then I still say that's a sign that it's not the career path for you. For all we know, these jobs have these things because it's common on the job and a candidate should really feel at ease doing it. That's my opinion anyway. We can only form opinions based on experience and apparently, mine differs from yours.