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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#261

Post by dbrumbaugh »

adregan wrote: post #242

What I've been thinking about leetcode medium/hard as a 30-45 minute tech interview (as there are a few minutes of pleasantry and 10 minutes reserved for questions), is that you are only really likely to reveal 2 camps of people—taking in good faith that they are not "cheating". One who is approaching the problem from first principles and the other who knows the solution already. Take maximum subarray problem, which…

>Take maximum subarray problem, which can be optimally solved with Kadane's algorithm. If you don't know that, you are looking at the problem as Professor Kadane once did. I can't say for sure, but I suspect it took him longer than 30-45 minutes to come up with his solution, and I also imagine he didn't spend the whole time blabbering about his thought process.

This is something that drives me nuts in academia when it comes to exam questions. I once took an exam that asked us to invent vector clocks from whole cloth, basically, having only knowledge of a basic Lamport clock for context. I think one person got it--and that person had just learned about vector clocks in a different class. Given some time, it's possible I could have figured it out. But on an exam, you've got like 10-15 minutes per question.

The funny thing about it is that I do the same damn thing from the other side all the time when working with students. It's incredibly tempting once you know the solution to a problem (especially if you didn't "solve" it yourself, but had the solution presented to you already) to present the question as though it has an obvious solution and expect somebody else to immediately solve it.

I'm aware of the effect, I've experienced it many times, and I still catch myself doing it. I've never interviewed a candidate for a job, but I can only imagine how tempting it would be to fall into that trap.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#262

Post by frankfrank13 »

vasco wrote: post #231
diob wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because coding interview questions aren't so much assessing job skills as much as they are thinly veiled IQ tests. I think if it was socially acceptable they'd just do the latter.

A lot of companies have IQ like tests, in particular big consulting companies like McKinsey and so on.

McK's case interview is just as game-able as HackerRank style interviews. There are entire consulting clubs at many colleges that teach this exact interview style. It's true that it's harder (but not impossible) to use AI to help, but calling it an IQ-like test is true only as much as any other technical interview.

That being said, McK did create an entire game that they claim can't be studied for ahead of time. If the intention is to test true problem solving skills, then maybe that's roughly equivalent to a systems interview, which is hard(er) to cheat .

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#263

Post by wkat4242 »

What a BS article. As they say, just do the interview in person. Problem solved. Not sure about the US but 99% of jobs here in Spain are hybrid or onsite ("presencial"), not fully remote.

They're acting like all jobs are remote and it's impossible to do an interview in person.

Also, does it really matter? If a person is good at using AI and manages to be good at creating code with that, is it really so much worse than a person that does it from the top of their head? I think we have to drop the idea that AI is going to go away. I know it's all overhyped right now but there is definitely something to it. I think it will be another tool in our toolboxes. Just like stackoverflow has been for ages (and that didn't kill interviews either).

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#264

Post by tuan »

I feel like we, SWEs, have been over-engineering our interview process. Maybe it's time to simplify it, for example, just ask questions based on the candidate's resume instead of coming up with random challenges. I feel like all the new proposals seem overly complicated, and nobody, interviewer or interviewee, is happy with any of them.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#265

Post by ToucanLoucan »

Shorel wrote: post #250
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the functional difference between copying an AI answer and copying a StackOverflow answer, in terms of it being "cheating" during an interview? I think the entire question is missing the forest for the trees. I have never asked a candidate to write code in any fashion during an interview. I talk to them. I ask them how they would solve problems, chase down bugs, or implement new features. I ask about concepts…

> Languages are largely teachable, it's just syntax and keywords. That's only true for a subset of programming languages, and it requires you to already know how to program in at least another language of the same family. Knowing Java will not help you with Haskell, but it will help you with C#. I have to deal with students using AI to cheat on homework and exams, and I can't allow them to not even learn the basic co…

I'm not arguing to let people cheat with AI. I'm saying asking people to write code in interviews is useless.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#266

Post by karaterobot »

m11a wrote: post #248
karaterobot wrote: post #184

The best interview process I've ever been a part of involved pair programming with the person for a couple hours, after doing the tech screening having a phone call with a member of the team. You never failed to know within a few minutes whether the person could do the job, and be a good coworker. This process worked so well, it created the best team, most productive team I've worked on in 20+ years in the industry,…

I dislike pair programming interviews - as they currently exist - because they usually feel like a time-crunched exam. You don't realistically have the freedom to actually think as you would in actual pair programming. i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview, but it's pretty realistic of real life work and entirely a non-problem. It's probably even good to test for at i…

That's definitely up to the interviewer, in which a lot of discretion and trust has been placed. I think a lot of it also comes down to the culture of the company—whether they're cutthroat or supportive. As you get better people into the company, hopefully this improves over time. I know that when we did it, it was never about nailing it on the first try, it was literally about proving you knew how to program and were not an asshole. So, not the equivalent of reversing a binary tree on a whiteboard. The kinds of problems we worked on in the interviews weren't leetcode type problems, they were real tickets from our current project. Sometimes it was just doing stuff like making a new component or closing a bug, but those were the things we really did, so it felt like a better test.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#267

Post by barbazoo »

m11a wrote: post #248
karaterobot wrote: post #184

The best interview process I've ever been a part of involved pair programming with the person for a couple hours, after doing the tech screening having a phone call with a member of the team. You never failed to know within a few minutes whether the person could do the job, and be a good coworker. This process worked so well, it created the best team, most productive team I've worked on in 20+ years in the industry,…

I dislike pair programming interviews - as they currently exist - because they usually feel like a time-crunched exam. You don't realistically have the freedom to actually think as you would in actual pair programming. i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview, but it's pretty realistic of real life work and entirely a non-problem. It's probably even good to test for at i…

> i.e. if you wag your tail chasing a bad end for 15 mins, this is a fail in an interview

That’s an assumption. Perhaps following a dead end for a while, realizing it, pivoting, etc is a valuable, positive, signal?

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#268

Post by renewiltord »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #20
renewiltord wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what Triplebyte planned on. The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals.

> The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals. It's a common sentiment. But compare https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decisio... . ("People predicting the future performance of college students state that interviewing the students aids prediction, although in fact the interviews make predictions less accurate.")

Well, the people who read that are welcome to try that and outcompete me in the market. Triplebyte still exists.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#269

Post by tokai »

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…

>I was allowed to use any programming language because they knew them all (allegedly). brainfuck time

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#270

Post by absolutelastone »

pockmarked19 wrote: post #240
absolutelastone wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The goal isn't to "solve the puzzle" but instead to demonstrate you can reason about it effectively, communicate your knowledge and communicate as part of problem solving. ...while being closely monitored in a high-stakes performance in front of an audience of strangers judging them critically.

That’s a skill you do need at Google if you’re going to survive. At least nowadays.

Perhaps. I'd even say it's part of what is taught as part of a PhD.

But if someone was ready for your exact question by having the right interview practice/experience, or they just don't care about your job so there's no stakes. Then you still aren't measuring what you think you are.

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