> which are kind of irrelevant to real work, but the problem solving approaches you need to take are very relevant It's also a common vocabulary shared across

> which are kind of irrelevant to real work, but the problem solving approaches you need to take are very relevant It's also a common vocabulary shared across engineers, no matter their seniority or where they graduated from. And knowledge of algo and data structures demonstrate someone could learn it in the first place. Especially for junior hires, it's an excellent predictor of success.