This statement "we don't usually care if you don't know find the perfect algorithm (unless it's for a senior position)" made me chuckle.
I can see this interviewer writing feedback like "Well, this candidate didn't come up with a perfect implementation of Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm, but its OK, they were pretty close. Oh wait, they are a senior engineer? Nevermind... they should have really mastered these algorithms while building CRUD APIs all these years."
I can see this interviewer writing feedback like "Well, this candidate didn't come up with a perfect implementation of Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm, but its OK, they were pretty close. Oh wait, they are a senior engineer? Nevermind... they should have really mastered these algorithms while building CRUD APIs all these years."