EE/CE here. I took the intro to data structures class and stopped at that. Been kicking myself for years because that's seemingly the only thing people care about; not actual competency (at least in the context of interviews).
Thing is, I'm a decent programmer, maybe even above average. My career so far has consisted largely of being the only or one of a few technical people and doing whatever needs to be done to make X happen. I built a poor-man's version of the mail sorting machines the USPS (and other postal organizations) use to photograph, OCR and sort mail. I remember everyone's mind's being blown when Outbox (R.I.P.) showed people pictures of their letters, and I built a system like that by myself for a previous employer in about two years while also completely rewriting the website. 65kLOC of VBScript/ASP to 20kLOC of python/django plus a whole bunch of new features.
If you believe sloccount (I don't really) in two years I did about 4 person-years of work that it says is worth a substantial fraction of a million dollars and a substantial multiple of what I got paid.
But I don't remember what a red/black tree is.
Knowing data structures and algorithms isn't the only way to be a competent programmer. To get my EE degree I had to take calc 1,2,3, diffeq, discrete math, linear algebra, senior level statistics, and these were all just pre-reqs to my engineering classes.
I think a lot of people get hung up on computer science == programming. There's a lot of overlap, sure, but huge amounts of programming doesn't have anything to do with computer science.
Yea. I and many of my coworkers are similar to you. BS&MS in applied math. Did some of the little programming courses but not the full CS path (though I did last summer work through all of this just to catch up some background http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...).
The reality is different industries have different standards. I'd probably never pass a SV interview because I'm not ever going to memorize many of the CS fundamentals. I work with EEs, Aeros, MEs that code (robotics types), math physics and chem PHds, etc. Sure there's a few CS guys here and there usually that double majored in phys or math.
On a given day, what's more important to our engineering problems is my understanding of advanced linear algebra topics, not a sorting alg (lot of work in CV recently for ex). We really don't bring anyone into an interview that hasnt studied the full gamut of math required in a math/phys/engineering degree. In such an environment, the interview questions are more about how you solved problems and never the memorization of some sorting alg. Oddly enough, when you weed out everyone that doesn't have a full math curriculum first, you don't seem to find many people that 'cant code'. Go figure.
> the interview questions are more about how you solved problems and never the memorization of some sorting alg
How you solved a problem is probably the only meaningful way to screen candidates. Sadly there are a lot of people who think that a whiteboard coding session is "how you solved a problem" when few -- if any -- meaningful problems get solved in an hour or two.
When I get really stumped on something the first thing I do is get my head out of the problem. Go for a walk, work with my hands in the shop, get lunch, anything but try and solve the problem directly anymore. This strategy used to make me really nervous in college with short deadlines but now that's less of a concern.
I have yet to step back from a problem and not figure out the solution (at least where one exists).
I believe part of this is your own frustration, and I do not blame you for venting.
Another part is the inherent error is using education as a proxy for ability to contribute.
My biggest concern, however, is that we assume there is a hierarchy of programmers. That the person who surpasses John Carmack is automatically more valuable than someone else, because it's a vertical pecking order.
In reality, it's likely that given the constraints of a position, Carmack++ is not a good fit.
We see someone build a faster sqrt algorithm as ability. What about the programmer who does his best to navigate internal obstacles adroitly -- why is that not praised just as much? It's certainly a difficult accomplishment -- why praise people for ability entirely?
Thing is, I'm a decent programmer, maybe even above average. My career so far has consisted largely of being the only or one of a few technical people and doing whatever needs to be done to make X happen. I built a poor-man's version of the mail sorting machines the USPS (and other postal organizations) use to photograph, OCR and sort mail. I remember everyone's mind's being blown when Outbox (R.I.P.) showed people pictures of their letters, and I built a system like that by myself for a previous employer in about two years while also completely rewriting the website. 65kLOC of VBScript/ASP to 20kLOC of python/django plus a whole bunch of new features.
If you believe sloccount (I don't really) in two years I did about 4 person-years of work that it says is worth a substantial fraction of a million dollars and a substantial multiple of what I got paid.
But I don't remember what a red/black tree is.
Knowing data structures and algorithms isn't the only way to be a competent programmer. To get my EE degree I had to take calc 1,2,3, diffeq, discrete math, linear algebra, senior level statistics, and these were all just pre-reqs to my engineering classes.
I think a lot of people get hung up on computer science == programming. There's a lot of overlap, sure, but huge amounts of programming doesn't have anything to do with computer science.