> I’ve been programming for 18 years now. Only very rarely have I had to come up with a complex algorithm.

This. I am sure it is dependent on the type of work you do, and that Tesla and Google Search engineers probably need to excel at algorithms, but very rarely do I come across any need to solve those types of problems while developing software.

I would much prefer to see problems that resemble "You have Service A, which needs to grab data from Service B and feed it to Service C. Show how you could integrate them." That would be much more representative of a larger body of typical work. Some companies out there like Starfighter do this, I wish more did.