Maybe I’m not like the interviewers/companies to which you’re referring, but I ask a DAG topo sort question (dependency resolution/task ordering) not because I

Maybe I’m not like the interviewers/companies to which you’re referring, but I ask a DAG topo sort question (dependency resolution/task ordering) not because I expect the candidate to regurgitate the algorithm but because I legitimately want to see how they work through a problem - especially one they may(hopefully) not be familiar with. Most of the time I don’t care if they get the optimal algorithm, rather the can think through something and know where problems might be. Might not be how/why the “others” use that question, but its worked well for me.