That was an interview for SRE role. One of the big ones.

SRE btw has come to mean "you must know everything...in order to do on-calls" but that deserves a whole post in itself.

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I'm OK with complexities, etc. I get why they're so popular in interviews. I don't agree but I get it. They were an annoyance to review and keep in my RAM since I don't really use them in day-to-day work but I swallowed that pill.