One big problem is that the people interviewing are rarely "big picture" people, because in general there are few "big picture" people as a percentage of any po

One big problem is that the people interviewing are rarely "big picture" people, because in general there are few "big picture" people as a percentage of any population. So, when "small picture" people think "competence", they think in minutiae, which in software development means the smallest distinct units: algorithms. I've been in the industry long enough to see it everywhere, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Most people prefer tactics to strategy, and you only actually want a small percentage to be strategists anyway; too many chiefs and whatnot. But when it comes to the technical interview, it's frustrating to deal with a tactically minded rather than a strategically minded person.