I think most people vastly overestimate the novelty of what they're working on. Most people writing software at Google actually aren't doing more than gluing AP

I think most people vastly overestimate the novelty of what they're working on. Most people writing software at Google actually aren't doing more than gluing APIs together on a day to day basis. In that sense it's much more important for them to have a solid understanding of reliable infrastructure and system design than algorithms and data structures. Indeed, this shows in the way they interview for people who aren't new grads.