Well I had the first call with a recruiter this Monday about a Google SRE-TPM role, and I got the exact same questions – granted, presented as a warm up.
If you had literally the same questions, worded the same, there's something horribly broken (or you got the same broken recruiter). I think you're remembering similar questions (e.g. they asked the one about the potato) but the details make a huge difference.
I stressed the fact that I had this interview 4 days ago – I'm 100% I got the same questions. My guess is it's because they are really just to give candidates an impression of what the actual interview is going to be like – this is what my recruiter said as well. Again, this is NOT the phone screen, just the first informal chat with the recruiter.
You mean, when they asked about quicksort, they used the precise wording in the blog post? Or was it worded in a different way, say, closer to the versions posted elsewhere on the internet? The difference is important. I do not believe the recruiter asked "Why is quicksort the best?", I think they asked a different question.
