I think that you're being to generous to the author. Your examples are true but a job interview doesn't ask you to refamiliazire yourself with a codebase or a t

I think that you're being to generous to the author. Your examples are true but a job interview doesn't ask you to refamiliazire yourself with a codebase or a tech stack, it asks whether you're familiar with algorithms, data structures and basic logic in any C-style language. That's a way more general skill than the details of your old assembly codebase. The article omits what the author's experience is and when they say "I've spent 15 years working as a developer and a strategist at leading investment banks", I suspect that their role was much heavier on the strategist side and only now are they realising that they haven't been a developer for the past 15 years.