[bcrosby95]

> But it could be argued that given an opportunity, an engineer should have the skills and ability to build these systems.

Having the skills and ability to build these systems doesn't mean you can regurgitate all the algorithms required to build them on a whiteboard in 30-60 minutes. It means you have to ability to search for algorithms and apply them to your problem at hand over the course of several days, weeks, or even months.

Do you really think anyone building these systems spent only 60 minutes both deciding upon, and coding ANY of their algorithms and called it a day because they obviously chose the best one?

[tourist_on_road]

Isn't it what computer science is all about. You won't necessarily see the exact problem. But having the ability to reduce the problem at hand to an efficient algorithm that you might have "regurgitated".