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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#71

Post by brainwipe »

I was asked by an SME to code on a whiteboard for an interview (in 2005? I think?). I asked if I could have a computer, they said no. I asked if I would be using a whiteboard during my day-to-day. They said no. I asked why they used whiteboards, they said they were mimicking Google's best practice. That discussion went on for a good few minutes and by the end of it I was teetering on leaving because the fit wasn't good.

I agreed to do it as long as they understood that I felt it was a terrible way of assessing someone's ability to code. I was allowed to use any programming language because they knew them all (allegedly).

The solution was a pretty obvious bit-shift. So I wrote memory registers up on the board and did it in Motorola 68000 Assembler (because I had been doing a lot of it around that time), halfway through they stopped me and I said I'd be happy to do it again if they gave me a computer.

The offered me the job. I went elsewhere.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#72

Post by nprateem »

twelve40 wrote: post #60

Prediction: faangs will come up with something clever or random or just fly everyone onsite, they are so rich and popular, they can filter by any arbitrary criteria. Second-rate companies will keep some superficial coding, but will start to emphasize more of the verbal parts like system design and retrospective. Which sucks, because those are totally subjective and mostly filters for whoever can BS better on the spot…

It's not that hard. Just ask them to explain the code. Then ask them how they'd change it for several different scenarios.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#73

Post by CharlieDigital »

Code reviews.

Teams are really sleeping on code reviews as an assessment tool. As in having the candidate review code.

A junior, mid, senior, staff are going to see very different things in the same codebase.

Not only that, as AI generated code becomes more common, teams might want to actively select for devs that can efficiently review code for quality and correctness.

I went through one interview with a YC company that had a first round code review. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up making a small open source app for teams that want to use code reviews: https://coderev.app (repo: https://github.com/CharlieDigital/coderev)

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#74

Post by michpoch »

jakubmazanec wrote: post #67

The problem isn't AI, the problem is companies don't know how to properly select between candidates, and they don't apply even the basics of Psychometrics. Do they do item analysis of their custom coding tests? Do they analyse the new hires' performances and relate them to their interview scores? I seriously doubt it. Also, the best (albeit the most expensive) selection process is simply letting the new person to do…

> Also, the best (albeit the most expensive) selection process is simply letting the new person to do the actual work for a few weeks.

What kind of desperate candidate would agree to that? Also, what do you expect to see from the person in a few weeks? Usual onboarding (company + project) will take like 2-3 months before a person is efficient.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#75

Post by _the_inflator »

micheles wrote: post #61

Nowadays I am on the other part of the fence, I am the interviewer. We are not a FAANG, so we just use a SANE interview process. Single interview, we ask the candidate about his CV and what his expectations are, what are his competences and we ask him to show us some code he has written. That's all. The process is fast and extremely effective. You can discriminate week candidates in minutes.

Do you reevaluate them in predetermined intervals to see how your initial expectation matches the outcome?

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#76

Post by FirmwareBurner »

realharo wrote: post #68
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these "most people"? School was over 10 years ago for me when schoolwork was not posted on GitHub nor is it relevant to my current job anymore, and I don't do hobby coding since I have other hobbies and responsibilities. WTF is this hobby coding bullshit expectations? What other professions expect you do more work after work as a hobby and show it? Do bus drivers film themselves driving busses after work as a…

The amount of time people spend grinding leetcode instead (if you believe what they say about it online) is just as much or more.

Those are bubbles. I am aware such people exist but nobody I know grinds leetcode or does hobby programing.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#77

Post by thecleaner »

brainwipe wrote: post #71

I was asked by an SME to code on a whiteboard for an interview (in 2005? I think?). I asked if I could have a computer, they said no. I asked if I would be using a whiteboard during my day-to-day. They said no. I asked why they used whiteboards, they said they were mimicking Google's best practice. That discussion went on for a good few minutes and by the end of it I was teetering on leaving because the fit wasn't go…

Take a bow.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#78

Post by OutOfHere »

janalsncm wrote: post #63
OutOfHere wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no shame in taking time off after leaving a job to develop or contribute to an open source project or two. The world would be a better place for it.

Well the reason I don’t has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with time. I’m allocating my extra time to work, which (on a good day) makes my company money. For a candidate who does have OS contributions, that’s great but most will not. And the more senior they are the less likely I would imagine.

If you already have a job, you don't strictly need a different one. If you really need one, it should be okay to quit the old one first, perhaps work on open source as needed, then get a new one. As it is often said, looking for a job is a full-time job.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#79

Post by thecleaner »

I know nobody likes doing tech interviews but how has AI killed it ? Anyways you do want to know basics of computer science, it is a helpful thing to know if you ever want to progress beyond CRUD shitshovelling.

Also wtf is inverting a binary tree ? Like doing a "bottom-view". That shit is easy.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#80

Post by delta_p_delta_x »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #66
ramon156 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have still written code for school or a hobby project. Maybe I'm missing empathy, but I cannot understand how some developers have no code to show. If that's the case however, just let them make a small project over the weekend and then do another interview where you ask stuff about what they've made. It's not that deep

Who are these "most people"? School was over 10 years ago for me when schoolwork was not posted on GitHub nor is it relevant to my current job anymore, and I don't do hobby coding since I have other hobbies and responsibilities. WTF is this hobby coding bullshit expectations? What other professions expect you do more work after work as a hobby and show it? Do bus drivers film themselves driving busses after work as a…

> WTF is this hobby coding bullshit expectations? What other professions expect you do more work after work as a hobby and show it? Do bus drivers film themselves driving busses after work as a hobby? Do surgeons cut up people in their spare time as a hobby?

I think programming has more commonality with other creative, 'soft' jobs like graphic design (which itself can involve programming), architecture, media, marketing, etc than meets the eye.

Many of these roles require that applicants have some sort of portfolio that can be perused by the interviewer freely. I feel co-opting that word—'portfolio'—would do us software developers a big favour instead of trivialising outside-of-work programming as 'side projects' or 'hobbies'.

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