I guess maybe I've just been lucky (or perhaps have chosen which companies to talk to well) in that I've always had discussions closer to your "what are the pro

I guess maybe I've just been lucky (or perhaps have chosen which companies to talk to well) in that I've always had discussions closer to your "what are the pros/cons if you design an API to expose txns" example than "implement a red/black tree off the top of your head." Perhaps this is coloring my judgement. Honestly if someone asked me to code a red/black tree, I'd probably say "I remember that term, but I don't for the life of me remember what it is exactly. If you want to give me part of the answer I can probably logic out the details on my own but I'm not going to do well on your memorization test."