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Re:Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters by skywhopper on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @09:38PM (#13702463)
Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times. If you filter the engineers you are willing to hire based on any one factor (unless you are looking for that specific specialty), then you are missing out on a variety of perspectives and experience that could make a better team. You don't need everyone on your team to be an algorithm expert. If you don't recognize that there are a huge variety of other skills necessary to successful software projects, then you are the one experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect, not the op.
Re:Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters by stcredzero on Tuesday February 21, 2017 @09:45PM (#13702519)
Point of clarification: I don't want everyone to be an algorithm expert. I do want every programmer to have the basic background knowledge. If you are passingly familiar with binary trees and recursion, then you can figure out the answer from First Principles. If you are not familiar with the skills at that level, and don't have the basic skills you're supposed to get by studying such things, then perhaps one would characterize that as merely memorizing.

Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times.

Where did I ever say such a preposterous thing? Please provide a quote.

And again, if you understand algorithms at a basic level from First Principles, then you don't have to memorize every algorithm like baseball card trivia. The important thing is having the background knowledge. If you don't think such knowledge is foundational background, then you probably don't know enough to know that. Hence: Dunning-Kruger.