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>This is sad and a little surprising to me.

It's incredibly surprising to me. Our interview problems call for things like DFS, tries, stacks, etc. I've never seen a candidate so comfortable with these much more basic topics that I could imagine them writing a DP algorithm (much less proving it correct - we never ask that) in 45 minutes.

We are taught to prefer problems with several independent hurdles, each of which can be reasonably thought through even if not familiar with an algorithms textbook. From my memories of algorithms class, DP problems usually had one very tough "aha moment" to crack. Not a good way for the candidate to show problem solving skill, just more of a binary "did they get it or not?"