> He solved hard algorithm problems like they were nothing
That's mostly practice. When I did webdev I was really shitty at algorithms because there were no algorithms in my daily work. When I did some Baduk AI programming I started being much better at algorithms since I was implementing some custom algorithms myself.
If you are interviewing someone for a web dev position, it's kind of ridiculous to screen people by their ability of merging sorted arrays or whatnot.
You highlight a very important point. Doing well on algorithms in interviews only needs some dedicated practice. It is NOT a signal for higher intellect as many people misunderstand it to be.
That's mostly practice. When I did webdev I was really shitty at algorithms because there were no algorithms in my daily work. When I did some Baduk AI programming I started being much better at algorithms since I was implementing some custom algorithms myself.
If you are interviewing someone for a web dev position, it's kind of ridiculous to screen people by their ability of merging sorted arrays or whatnot.