[ertian]

The same thing actually applies to DS&A interviews: a person can memorize the solution to a given problem, but the interviewer can easily throw some curveballs that require deeper knowledge to handle.

It might come down to who is doing the interview: if you're a founder, or a team leader, and have done a lot of project management, you're likely to ask better questions about constraints, considerations, teamwork, etc, and get a better read on a candidate from questions about past experience. OTOH, a programmer giving an interview may not really care that much about those aspects or have a realistic idea of what a reasonable answer sounds like, and will thus tend to just jump through the interview hoops--and be more susceptible to, well, nonsense. On the other hand, they may actually be interested and invested in low-level technical questions.

I've had really good tech interviews that were challenging and even fun, and I don't think I could've faked my way through. I've never had a good experiential interview. But then, I've only ever interviewed for front-line programming jobs at large companies.