[danielmarkbruce]

Sure but the default (and usually correct) assumption when working at google (as an example) is basically "all numbers are big", so you you have to cluey about algorithms and data structures and not default to brute forcing something.

At 99% of shops it should be the other way around .

[jltsiren]

Even when you are working with large numbers, most numbers are usually small. Most of the code is probably not dealing with the large things, and a large thing may consist of a large number of instances that are individually small.

I've personally found it useful to always have concrete numbers in mind. An algorithm or data structure designed for N will probably be fine for N/10 and 10N, but it will often be inefficient for N/1000 or 1000N.