This is true. I interviewed someone for a senior eng role the other day and when asked a couple basic CS questions that were not simply trivia, the candidate fell apart totally. Like asking basic DB questions to a DBA candidate, or asking basic web/css/html questions to a frontend developer. They immediately went to the back of the line.
Please share the questions. I always find it amusing that tech types seem to believe their idea of “basic X knowledge” translates across the board. I think it’s this attitude of “oh you don’t know what I think you should know” that proliferates the industry that is a major part of the problem. How do you handle folks that don’t have even the most basic form of formal “CS knowledge” but can still ship product? Do you just dismiss them completely over being able to have a water cooler talk about O(...) and some algorithm someone would never have to implement in that specific context? Seems like a premature optimization to me.
+1 Very well said. I've actually experience this first hand while interviewing for one of the FAANGs. I have a background with embedded software engineering, working with C/C++, and working with low level I/O and bare-metal + using RTOS, and also Unix/Linux, and the position I was being interviewed for was for an "Embedded Developer." The job description described the role working on their RTOS. During the phone interview, the interviewer asked a question that (later I found out) can only be solved optimally using splay trees or red-black trees.
I have worked in the embedded industry for 6 years, and have worked on a wide variety of projects (from WiFi to drones/airplanes to medical devices), and have never needed to use this, yet the interviewer expected me to know this.
Anecdotally speaking, when recruiters throw this kind of curve balls, it's because they already have someone in mind for that position and are interviewing candidates just to fill paperwork.
