"References" in the traditional sense may not be an important thing. But certainly being able to back your resume claims – whether with skills from that experience, or with people who will vouch for you – is important. If it wasn't, we could all just put "Optimized SQL and improved profit 20%" (or anything else) on our resumes, no?
I participate in interviews from time to time. I don't ask a lot of trivia-type algorithm questions, but I do try to size up where a candidate has invested their effort so far. Have they invested it in trying (and learning) to solve problems? Or have they invested in in padding their resume? I'll take the former over the latter every time, even if they don't have a bunch of brag-points on their resume.
That's just me, though shrug
Yes, but they're exceptions.
> Overall impact is more helpful than resume points, IME, especially when references are involved.
The vast majority of the best paying jobs out there (FAANG), don't care at all about references.
It's a big world, it depends a lot in which circles you move around, I guess.