[ashwinaj]

> Asking a person to traverse and modify a linked-list (a very common problem) or to implement a B-tree are not 'tech outside their job'

No. No one in their daily jobs implements a linked list or B-Tree. There are predefined libraries in the languages or a user created library that people use. Do you really think every person in the company has his/her own version of a linked list in the same code base? This is a fallacy perpetuated time and again. (I'm not against these type of questions, but they don't represent someone's true ability)

Building a product, app, project requires application of this knowledge: eg., I need to design a distributed data store, should I use hash map? What about collisions? Should the collisions be resolved by chaining (linked List) or another map? What kind of data am I storing? Can that be exploited to make this more efficient, synchronization of data across nodes (?), etc..

Many of these interviews completely overlook someone's design ability and harp on some straightforward (and some obscure) topics which IMO has little to no co-relation to someone's ability as a software engineer.

[thecrazyone]

this, so this.

Why is everyone stuck on getting someone to reinvent the wheel as against getting him to use the said wheel and get things done.

I find the processes in a large company rather robotic (note: we're a startup, so my views might be biased).

[RandomOpinion]

>Why is everyone stuck on getting someone to reinvent the wheel as against getting him to use the said wheel and get things done.

A person who can only use a pre-made wheel is a technician (regardless of how ostentatious their job title may be).

A person who can invent the wheel on demand can also usually invent any other type of rolling mechanism one might encounter a need for and that makes that person a full-fledged engineer.

No value judgement of either person is implied; it's simply a statement of capability. Which type of person is needed depends on the company and the position but it is becoming increasingly clear that the two roles in software are separate, just as they are in other engineering disciplines.

[mathgenius]

> No one in their daily jobs implements a linked list or B-Tree.

Counter case: HFT. Those guys really do implement this stuff. Again and again.

[Terr_]

Which is why it's an outlier.