Of course. I’ve interviewed over 400 people in my career and I’ve never directly asked someone if they’ve done leetcode problems. I don’t care about actual leetcode. Looking at someone’s progress on leetcode as a replacement for an interview would be a terrible idea.
As an interviewer, I care about their skills - technical skills (like debugging ability and CS knowledge), social skills (can we talk about our work together?) and judgement. Your ability to understand data structures and algorithms is signal, but there is a lot more to a good candidate than knowing how to make a bit of code run fast. Knowing when to make code fast is, as you say, just as important.
As an interviewer, I care about their skills - technical skills (like debugging ability and CS knowledge), social skills (can we talk about our work together?) and judgement. Your ability to understand data structures and algorithms is signal, but there is a lot more to a good candidate than knowing how to make a bit of code run fast. Knowing when to make code fast is, as you say, just as important.