I'd argue that memorizing solutions is the exact opposite of reinventing the wheel. You implement an existing tried and true approach rather than trying to come up with a clever solution yourself. Most of the work at large tech companies isn't innovative but rather it's tedious work that has to be done to high standards with verbose documentation. This seems to select the right people for that. Remember that selecting against doesn't mean excluding. Enough innovative people will get in to keep pushing things forward.
You couldn't be more wrong. Memorization is one of the lowest forms of intelligence. Just because you can spit out a DFS algorithm, it doesn't mean you understand why and how it works.
FAANG employers want innovators who think outside the box. You can't do that with sheer memorization. Nothing new would be developed if tech companies hired people who just worked with what they already knew.
There's a difference between software engineers and coders. If tech companies didn't want engineers, they would simply hire coders from a coding boot camp.
