Tech culture is very weird in terms of the skills it chooses to prioritize. God help you if you can't put a red-black tree implementation on the board in 15 minutes from memory, but being able to write a coherent 6-page design document (or even understand one!) is asking too much.

Being able to read, synthesize, and write as fast and as well as a mediocre liberal-arts undergrad turns out to be a superpower.