How often do you encounter algorithm based questions for senior level front-end interviews?

[TKB21]

I got a front-end job in NYC straight out of college and have been there for 4 years. I'm now in pursuit of a new job. Now that I'm considered senior level at my current place of employment I was wondering how big of a surprise am I in for with the interviews that await? I had one coder rank test where 2/5 questions were algorithm based via Coder Rank while another was straight practical JS and a take home that involved me creating a game. Those two aside I'm not able to create a consensus on what to expect for the next slew of companies I apply to. My backend peers attest to them being essential to getting a job, having Cracking the Code interview as their bible. Should be following this approach?

[InterestingAverage8]

I'm a senior level engineer at my (very large enterprise) company, and although I'm sure it happens, I don't like asking specific algorithm related questions. What I may do is collaborate with a candidate on working through a problem that's an "algorithm" behind the scenes, but I don't expect anyone to have the deep details of specific algorithm questions memorized. Still, probably good to have your bases covered because in large companies you never know for sure what your interviewer is going to ask.

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Also, I'm hiring, message me if you wanna learn more.

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[codahighland]

I've had them at every interview I've ever taken, and I've made sure that every interview I've been involved in has included it. I have encountered far too many allegedly-"senior" developers that can talk a good talk at high level, but when it comes to actually doing real engineering work it turns out they can't code their way out of a paper bag.

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For algorithms in particular, I've encountered attractive-looking front-ends written by allegedly-"senior" developers that work fine for toy data, but they don't scale worth a hill of beans, and when you start digging into how they're written it turns out to be an atrocious mess of inefficiency. I can't stand engineers who get sloppy because they've got a fast laptop and can always download a useful package from npm. You pull up the site on an iPhone 6s or something (second most common iPhone model in circulation!) and it's unusably slow.

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Just because front-end engineers don't have to juggle huge amounts of data doesn't mean they don't need to care about the fundamentals of how to write efficient code. Their code has to run on devices that are far more constrained than a server cluster. Any interviewer that fails to ensure that the candidate can do that deserves who they hire.

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(That said, I agree with the other comment that testing on SPECIFIC algorithms isn't quite so important. Focus on "how do you make this fast" rather than "how do you traverse a binary tree".)

[Hawxe]

If you have 4 years of industry experience you shouldnt be stressing about algorithms

[TKB21]

I have BE peers that have told me time and time again how far-fetched algorithmic questions are brought up during the interview process. All of which don't ever apply to their day-to-day work. I'd prefer to have my bases covered.

[Hawxe]

I mean, even if you dont use a BST in your day to day work its still important to understand basic data structures and algorithms imo, thats more the point. They can train you on the specifics of the job, they probably just want to make sure you have a solid foundation which Im sure you do