Those aren't basic at all, and I'm not sure why the commenter considered them so. As we all know, junior engineers have very limited exposure to a small area of

Those aren't basic at all, and I'm not sure why the commenter considered them so. As we all know, junior engineers have very limited exposure to a small area of tech, that's the very definition. It might just happen to be that the dev just finished a CS degree and is great at some of these algorithms, but that doesn't translate into a wide spectrum of technologies, which is only found in people with many years experience. I was the one that actually picked those, just out of thin air to illustrate my point. This I feel pretty confident that if they were the best solution to a problem I was having, I would find them through research. is exactly my point. How would you know that a bloom filter might be the best solution unless you know of it's existence in the first place. An architect's role is to suggest areas of research to junior engineers, who very likely may only have some vague memory from algorithms class.