[Demonsult]

It's not just testing fundamentals, it's testing who spent the most time on interview prep. Companies increase the difficulty level as more people do prep. That's become a cycle that favors those who have the most spare time. Senior engineers often have houses, kids and aging parents to take care of.

[Google234]

That doesn’t excuse hem forgetting what a priority queue is and when it’s appropriate to use one. The good senior engineers I know have a strong grasp of the fundamentals

[Demonsult]

You're hiring the candidate who happened to use one somewhat recently. The same candidate has completely forgotten other concepts and would have looked like a fool if questioned.

[theamk]

Requiring to implement a priority queue is harsh and no one should do this at the interviews.

Asking "what is a priority queue" is a totally fair question (if your job may reasonably require it), because knowledge that such things exist is a big part of being a senior person. You don't have to be able to know the class name, or exact notation, but you should be able to know what to Google for.

A person who does now know what a priority queue is will happily write O(n^2) algorithm which repeatedly calls max() and completely kill your app performance. There would be no opportunity to Google anything, because only senior people get business requirements, not names of algorithms they need to use.

[Google234]

That’s why people do more than 1 interview. My example was just an example, I probably should have qualified it.

[wilde]

If your company refuses to hire anyone where this statement is false, that doesn’t tell you much.

[giantg2]

So you're saying LeetCode is only for screening seniors? What about entry level?

[Google234]

Where did I say that? Senior should have both fundamental coding and also more broad system design interviews.