[ayyy]

If you hire based on algorithms, there's a good chance you'll end up with a bunch of people who are good at algorithms, or at least willing to put in the effort to study the algorithms and be able to recite them back with some variance.

If you hire based on knowing how the the internet works (TLS, HTTP, BGP, whatever), then you'll be working with a bunch of people that understand how the internet works.

I know which team I'd rather join.

[joj123]

I guess the idea is that TLS is sufficiently complicated that you can take tangents during the interview and establish if the candidate can understand and communicate complex concepts

[EdwardDiego]

When I'm looking to hire a software developer, I would personally would rather hire someone who can write well-structured and maintainable code, can describe a system architecture they worked on in a way that is accessible to people not familiar with the domain space, and is able to say "I don't know that, but I know how to Google it".

Now, if I'm hiring a sysop / devop / security engineer, it's going to be differently focused to some extent, but the same principles apply - core knowledge, communication, humility, ability to research.

[C1sc0cat]

Amen - maybe for ecomerce webdev roles ask about use of canonical tags and hreflang and site structure.