Not so sure. There are questions related to pipelining, combinational tree loads, retiming etc. For backend ASIC stuff this is valuable things to know and under

Not so sure. There are questions related to pipelining, combinational tree loads, retiming etc. For backend ASIC stuff this is valuable things to know and understand. I would say quite a few of the material are quite far from trivial. If SW people are asked to build linked lists, reversing tree structures etc, I would assume these questions for EEs, CSEEs would be asked too. I know I've asked similar things in the past.