Poor take. There are plenty of good engineering organisations in Europe, just as there are more than enough terrible ones in the US.
That being said I agree I wouldn't want to work somewhere like what was described above. It's certainly not a style of interview I would approve of or conduct myself.
Not sure what the jab is about. OP works for a body shop in a governmental org, where does that let you imply that startup and eng are backwards as neither are OP's experiences?
If the anecdote is related to your experiences working on FB then, please, specify it, blanket statements aren't what I expect from HN comments.