Yeah that’s the difference between a “blank stare” in the interview and a decent response. Anyone applying for a database position should know that relates to transactions and yadda-yadda. They should know why transactions are important, etc.

But… I’d like to say this is the kind of problem these quick-boot coding schools fall short on. Sure one can learn programming language X, but that doesn’t mean one has any sort of fundamentals in algorithms, data structures or general database technology.