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Discussion on: Should front end developers be interviewed about algorithms?

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John Stewart

I think it really depends on the job and the problems the company is trying to solve.

I'd bet 90% of companies are doing nothing truly new. Most companies are competitors in established markets or bringing technology that already exists to new markets. Of that 90%, you have a bunch of companies that are not true to themselves about what they are building and feel the need to prove they are doing something new and different which leads to questions about algorithms and data structures. In reality, on your first day you are doing the usual development tasks and so are they but they won't admit it.

Then you have that last 10% that are truly doing something new. And 10% might be a generous there. For example, Google created a search engine from scratch. A search engine back then wasn't even new! But, they came up with a new algorithm that was new and better. In that small percentage, I think it makes sense to hire someone who has a deep understanding of various algorithms and data structures because it takes that knowledge to build a new algorithm from scratch to do such a thing.

That's kind of how I view it in my head anyways. 🤷🏻‍♂️