I sense we may just have a different experience related to colleagues skill sets as I can think of 5 people I could send some questions too and I know they would do them just fine. Infact we often have done similar problems on a free afternoon and I often do similar on flights as a way to pass the time and improve my focus (my issue isn't my talent/understanding at maths, it's my ability to concentrate). I don't disagree that some level of training is needed but these questions aren't unique, nor impossible, especially as said training does exist and LLM's can access said examples. LLM's also have brute force which is a significant help with these type of issues. One particular point is that Math of all the STEM topics to try and focus on probably is the best documented alongside CS.