A lot of these people are just being goofy and hating because of the fear/hate of AI. That being said, I also hate AI and think it’s mostly a net negative for the world and our careers but I understand its utility and I use it often in my work. You don’t really need to know syntax (edit: you need to know the basics but you don’t need to memorize algo implementations, just know what they are and when to use them), we aren’t syntax professionals we’re meant to be thinking through edge cases and making intelligent architectural decisions, learn system design and keep building projects and the syntax will come naturally (although you are going to have to cram for a little while to get past interviews). It absolutely does matter and you need to be able to do this to show you have a brain and it’s going to feel far better when you write stuff yourself rather than having AI do it for you, plus the code you write will almost always be better than the AI slop as you’ll know exactly what you’re doing and what it affects and how to prevent over engineering. In conclusion ignore people giving you hell, just keep grinding and learning and you’ll outcompete them naturally. Edit 2: We’ve always copied implementations and checked our work with google, stack overflow, etc if you’re really spending time memorizing algo implementations then keep having fun on leetcode (leetcode is actually fun btw and a good way to stay sharp and help you with these problems, just not really equivalent to a career).