Working at the companies that often ask these questions (FB, Goog, Amazon, MS, Apple) work at scales that many other companies don't. They also develop novel fr

Working at the companies that often ask these questions (FB, Goog, Amazon, MS, Apple) work at scales that many other companies don't. They also develop novel frameworks or work on problems that might interest you. Example: if you want to work for a cloud service provider you need to jump through these hoops, even though regurgitating Rabin Karp or Tarjan's has little to do with day to day engineering. Another example: Canonical (Ubuntu) Microsoft (windows) and Apple (OSX) all ask these questions. If you want to have a part in building an OS you will get asked these questions. Basically if you want to work at "big tech" start grinding and don't stop until you move into management.