It&#x27;s well publicized what to expect at interviews for these firms. It shows that you&#x27;re willing to put in the preparation to make it work. In addition to putting in the work of memorizing the algorithms, a candidate needs to know how to apply them, and to write code, and to accept feedback, and to collaborate and communicate.<p>If a candidate isn&#x27;t willing to put in the work to prepare, it&#x27;s not much of a cognitive leap for me to envision them telling me that implementing this or that feature is dumb, impractical and not needed.  Many developers have this &quot;start with no&quot; defeatist attitude as their default position on most problems of moderate complexity, and it&#x27;s a real problem.  Given a chance to select for candidates that instead figure out a way to make it happen I&#x27;d rather take the winners.