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Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

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Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#571

Post by devnullbrain »

moorow wrote: post #486
titanomachy wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suck in FAANG interviews... it's just something I never practiced. Well, sounds like you know the solution. Or set your sights on a job that interviews a different way. I think it's mostly leetcode "easy", anyway. Maybe some medium. Never seen a hard, except maybe from one smartass at Google (they were not expecting a perfect answer). Out of a dozen technical interviews, I don't think I've ever needed to know a d…

On the other hand, if 20 hours of leetcode practice is all that stands between you and half a million dollars a year, isn't that a pretty good indicator that the interview process isn't hiring based on your skills, talent and education, and instead on something you basically won't encounter in the workplace?

Agency?

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#572

Post by ransom1538 »

DustinBrett wrote: post #287
alexjplant wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier this past week I asked Copilot to generate some Golang tests and it used some obscure assertion library that had a few hundred stars on GitHub. I had to explicitly ask it to generate idiomatic tests and even then it still didn't test all of the parameters that it should have. At a previous job I made the mistake of letting it write some repository methods that leveraged SQLAlchemy. Even though I (along with m…

I feel like I am taking crazy pills that other devs don't feel this way. How bad are the coders that they think these AI's are giving them super powers. The PR's with AI code are so obvious and when you ask the devs why, they don't even know. They just say, well the AI picked this, as if that means something in and of itself.

I am x10 faster with gpt. No regex, no stackoverflow, no sql, no broiler plate, no text manipulations.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#573

Post by grayhatter »

ransom1538 wrote: post #572
DustinBrett wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I am taking crazy pills that other devs don't feel this way. How bad are the coders that they think these AI's are giving them super powers. The PR's with AI code are so obvious and when you ask the devs why, they don't even know. They just say, well the AI picked this, as if that means something in and of itself.

I am x10 faster with gpt. No regex, no stackoverflow, no sql, no broiler plate, no text manipulations.

> well the AI picked this

hey look, we found him!

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#574

Post by throwaway2037 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #484
throwaway2037 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like take home tests are meaningless and I always have. Even more so now with LLMs This has been discussed many times already here. You need to set an "LLM trap" (like an SSH honey trap) by asking the candidate to explain the code they wrote. Also, you can wait until the code review to ask them how they would unit test the code. Most cheaters will fall apart in the first 60 seconds. It is such an obvious tel…

If you really need to test them / check that they haven't used an LLM or hired someone else to do it for them (which was how people "cheated" on take-home tests before), ask them to implement a feature live; it's their code, it should be straightforward if they wrote it themselves.

This is an interesting point. During the code review, you can add a small twist to the problem, then ask them how they would modify the code.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#575

Post by MacsHeadroom »

tmpz22 wrote: post #20
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #13

Changed enormously. Both resumes and interviews are effectively useless now. If our AI agents can't find a portfolio of original work nearly exactly what we want to hire you for then you aren't ever going to hear from us. If you are one of the 1 in 4000 applications who gets an interview then you're already 70% likely to get an offer and the interview is mostly a formality.

If the interview is mostly a formality is it still multiple hours of leet code?

No, there are AI's specifically for solving leet code. It's a waste of time.

https://leetcodewizard.io/

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#576

Post by dheera »

axegon_ wrote: post #444
fhd2 wrote: post #416

The last time I've used a leet code style interview was in 2012, and it resulted in a bad hire (who just happened to have trained on the questions we used). I've hired something like 150 developers so far, and what I ended up with after a few years of trial and error: 1. Use recruiters and network: Wading through the sheer volume of applications was even nasty before COVID, I don't even want to imagine what it's like…

I feel like take home tests are meaningless and I always have. Even more so now with LLMs, though 9/10 times you can tell if it's an LLM-people don't normally put trivial comments in the code such as > // This line prevents X from happening I've seen a number of those. The issue here is that you've already wasted a lot of time with a candidate. So being firmly against take home tests or even leetcode, I think the onl…

If you are evaluating how well people code without LLMs you are likely filtering for the wrong people and you are way behind the times.

For most companies, the better strategy would be to explicitly LET them use LLMs and see whether they can accomplish 10X what a coder 3 years ago could accomplish, in the same time. If they accomplish only 1X, that's a bad sign that they haven't learned anything in 3 years about how to work faster with new power tools.

A good analogy of 5 years ago would be forcing candidates to write in assembly instead of whatever higher level language you actually use in your work. Sure, interview for assembly if that's what you use, but 95% of companies don't need to touch assembly language.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#577

Post by MacsHeadroom »

Pooge wrote: post #23
fifilura wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean you will not hire anyone without a public portfolio?

I thought that meant what you typically write in the "Experience" section. GP, am I wrong? Is everyone writing a "Projects" section by rewording what they wrote in "Experience"?! For me, "Projects" should strictly be personal projects. If not, maybe that's what I'm missing.

I'm saying the sections of the resume don't matter at all. The resume is basically ignored. You either have public code you can point to on Github or you aren't ever hearing from us.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#578

Post by MacsHeadroom »

fifilura wrote: post #14
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #13

Changed enormously. Both resumes and interviews are effectively useless now. If our AI agents can't find a portfolio of original work nearly exactly what we want to hire you for then you aren't ever going to hear from us. If you are one of the 1 in 4000 applications who gets an interview then you're already 70% likely to get an offer and the interview is mostly a formality.

Does that mean you will not hire anyone without a public portfolio?

Essentially, yes. Public portfolios come in different flavors though. Most often it's code. But sometimes it's research, a blog, transcripts of talks ripped from YouTube.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#579

Post by ljm »

roenxi wrote: post #536
Stratoscope wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was interviewing candidates at IBM, I came up with a process I was really happy with. It started with a coding challenge involving several public APIs, in fact the same coding challenge that was given to me when I interviewed there. What I added: 1. Instead of asking "do you have any questions for me?" at the very end, we started with that general discussion. 2. A few days ahead, I emailed the candidate the pr…

(3) is biasing the process strongly in favour of people who spin a good story. If you're looking for a certain team culture then OK but this is going to neatly screen out anyone who just wants to do their job well and doesn't particularly know how to sell the extra-curriculars they have.

For a fairly casual question I'd see it more like an ice breaker or a way to build some rapport, but it's down to how you ask the question as well. Letting people know in advance (as the parent suggested) rather than dropping it on the fly is a good enough accommodation for people who would be anxious about that.

I find interviews quite tense and I generally dislike having them (on both sides of the table), but throwing in a few disarming questions here and there throughout really takes the edge off. A conversational, or more cerebral, approach like that can suit some people far better than live code tests or quick-fire Q&A.

Re: Ask HN: What is interviewing like now with everyone using AI?

#580

Post by MacsHeadroom »

lnsru wrote: post #423
crooked-v wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a portfolio of original work I'm too busy doing actual paid work for companies for that.

That’s the reality for most people. Creating many things under NDA with tools watching for IP theft. So no single line of code can leave the company. I know a guy who has a portfolio, but he’s freelance web designer.

IP secrecy isn't a moat in the age of AI. Open Source is the only way.
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