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Out of curiosity, why the focus on algorithms? Does your work genuinely involve understanding the implementation details of various algorithms? If so, could you

• Swizec 9y ago
  An algorithm is a series of steps to do a thing. In that sense everything I do is understanding and implementing algorithms. From wikipedia: An algorithm (Listeni/ˈælɡərɪðəm/ AL-gə-ri-dhəm) is a self-contained sequence of actions to be performed. Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty),[4] the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite[5] number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output"[6] and terminating at a final ending state. I mean, if you're not writing code that takes inputs and produces outputs, then what the hell are you doing? The point is to test candidate's ability to impart knowledge and to learn and to quickly adapt new information into the way they solve a problem. You can be the best coder in the world, but if I can't understand your code enough to be able to maintain it, you are going to be a pretty useless team member. Similarly, if you can't adapt your technical solutions to new information quickly, you're going to have a hard time keeping up with our product team. Hell, I'd be perfectly happy if you explain to me the algorithm (recipe) to make the perfect barbeque ribs. That shit's complicated too.