I think it&#x27;s important when interviewing candidates that he&#x2F;she can demonstrate fundamental CS knowledge. In any software project, you may be working out very complicated features, and CS knowledge is often the common language for conveying complex and subtle ideas.<p>That said, it&#x27;s perverse that there&#x27;s a cottage industry around software engineering interview training on both sides of the table for the crazy questions that are being asked. No one wants this, but sadly, once you&#x27;re in the door at these places that do these sorts of interviews, the motivation to affect change approaches zero.<p>There are some companies that have tried to make this a fairer assessment though, e.g. Foursquare <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;engineering.foursquare.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;04&#x2F;04&#x2F;improving-our-e..." rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;engineering.foursquare.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;04&#x2F;04&#x2F;improving-our-e...</a>. Putting this sort of effort into an interview process is time-consuming, but if the software industry is going to make its interview practices assess candidates more fairly, it&#x27;s going to take effort.