What makes some good software developers good at building large scale software but weak at data structures and algorithms? This question was originally answered on Quora by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.

Learn when and how to use different data structures and their algorithms in your own code. This is harder as a student, as the problem assignments you'll work through just won't impart this knowledge.

Now, as an assistant professor of industrial engineering at the University of Pittsburgh who recently won a Pitt Cyber Accelerator Grant, the 36-year-old Four Mile Run resident translated that ...