> if you are personally interested in the work, willing to learn, and aren't a jerk, you'll probably go further than someone who has traveling salesman memorized in 8 languages.

I'm not sure how you test the first three qualities reliably in an interview. The point of leetcode interviews is that they are arguably harder to game: if you manage to write some code solving some problem, you at least memorized a solution and somewhat understood it.

Maybe you trust engineers to be completely transparent, but then you also let in a different kind of "brilliant jerk" (as you put it) who learnt to fake interest.