I guess my question is how did he win the competition if he doesn't have enough knowledge to pass the interview? Maybe the interviews really aren't great at actually discerning who can create great DL models? I mean it's possible there are other reasons as well - but the guy objectively beat a bunch of credentialed people in an open competition.
There are a bunch of options here. Maybe they were looking for someone to do novel research. Maybe they wanted someone who can communicate with business partners. Maybe the competition is just people in the middle of their degrees spending an evening on it. Maybe it is just credentialism. Maybe a zillion other things.
> “My major was Physics and not Computer Science.”
Could be related to this. I know many good engineers who are better than average but are not CS majors, and who struggle with whiteboard/leetcode interviews.
