
Ask HN: Data structures, algorithms, and real life - throwaway040518
I’m a developer and have always worked in very small (&lt;15 employees) startups, usually in a pre or just-post MVP capacity.  Recently I decided to see what’s out there by applying to some larger companies based in SF, though I don’t live there now.  Invariably these interviews have stressed (and tested) “data structures and algorithms.”  I have a CS degree, so these are hardly foreign to me, but the code golf style problems I’ve been given don’t remotely resemble the work I’ve done over the last 10 years of my programming career.<p>My question is this: for those who work as a developer at larger (&gt;250 employees) companies, are these skills you use in your every day job or are they just an artifact of the interview process?  When I’ve hired developers for my companies I’ve always looked for people who are good at thinking holistically and building things quickly to get to market, not people who are good at memorizing how to implement a red-black tree.<p>There has been plenty of hand-wringing about engineering interviews.  This question is a symptom of the SF hiring process, but isn’t intended to retread that familiar ground.  I’m genuinely curious about what engineering in large firms looks like since I’ve never been exposed to it.
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noemit
Great question, would love to see some answers. I've never worked in a company
bigger than 100 people, but I've asked about this, and the general response is
that these interviews are more about filtering than representing what your job
will be about.

