Couldn't a good lead suggest an engineer learn this after-the-fact?
Also do most software problems involve optimizations at scale like at Netflix or Google ? It seems mismatched to assume that an esoteric use case is the gold standard.
I'm talking of my own experience. I've had to do most of these things (or variants thereof) either while working on Firefox or various experiments at Mozilla, or while working at various startups.
I'm sure that not all companies need this kind of skill. But I'm not surprised if Google feels that they do.
Also do most software problems involve optimizations at scale like at Netflix or Google ? It seems mismatched to assume that an esoteric use case is the gold standard.