[leothekim]

I'd say asking a candidate to implement levenshtein distance in an interview (probably not the best question to ask I'd say) is more about creating a level playing field for candidates who might not have "attended and spoken at relevant conferences" or have "a bunch of apps doing mission-critical work in production", but might be thoroughly productive and successful at XCorp nonetheless.

In fact, a candidate might have experience in something completely different but maybe just as impressive - publishing a paper on an optimization for an algorithm, creating a programming language, submitting Linux kernel patches, etc. How would one differentiate a candidate like that with someone with "a list of public repositories on GitHub as long as your arm"?

[emiller829]

I wouldn't differentiate them.

In fact, that's kinda the point. Each candidate should be evaluated on the unique experience they bring to the table. Trying to create the illusion of a level playing field by standardizing on generic code challenges in interview exercises is just that, an illusion.