A plumber, sure. What about the guys who design your water heater? Should they just google the thermodynamics as they go as well?<p>My point being, it depends on the role, and the expectations you have for the future of a candidate in your company. Are you hiring a guy to bugfix or implement a couple of features on your web app? Or a guy to design and implement from scratch a app that should have some hope of scaling in the future? Or a guy that can tackle a tricky performance problem you&#x27;re having?<p>I&#x27;m not claiming the current status quo is alright, but hiring the right people is hard. Knowing CS basics and generalities of the field doesn&#x27;t hurt either...