Personally, I tend to get the impression I might not actually enjoy the work at a company that concentrates on low-level questions like that.
I happen to like JS and node a lot, for very pragmatic reasons. I've also dabbled in Go and Rust for equally pragmatic reasons. It does help to understand some of the things under the covers when you need them. That said, for a LOT of jobs, code that works and is business rule correct is more important than if it takes a blink of an eye or three.
I tend to prefer a first pass in node/js, and then break things off or optimize as needed in practice. Scale !== raw performance and is often more important.
The candidates were applying for positions in game development at a company that made high-end 3D mobile games. Raw performance translated directly to retention and therefore revenue there.
I happen to like JS and node a lot, for very pragmatic reasons. I've also dabbled in Go and Rust for equally pragmatic reasons. It does help to understand some of the things under the covers when you need them. That said, for a LOT of jobs, code that works and is business rule correct is more important than if it takes a blink of an eye or three.
I tend to prefer a first pass in node/js, and then break things off or optimize as needed in practice. Scale !== raw performance and is often more important.