> The best candidates are those who know their algorithms inside and out, have the ability to break down and transform a problem until they can apply something

> The best candidates are those who know their algorithms inside and out, have the ability to break down and transform a problem until they can apply something in their toolkit, and have the coding chops to translate their concept into an implementation. I mean, I guess, but in the many hiring discussions I've been on I found that the interviewers who asked those questions and based their feedback on them had very noisy signals. They frequently gave "lean no hire" feedback on our best hires. The interviewers who actually asked questions relevant to the work had much better signals.