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AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

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Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#321

Post by solarmist »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #150
jghn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is harder than it sounds, although I agree in a vacuum the idea is a good one. So much value of the code review comes from having actual knowledge of the larger context. Mundane stuff like formatting quirks and obvious bad practices should be getting hoovered up by the linters anyways. But what someone new may *not* know is that this cruft is actually important for some arcane reason. Or that it's important that…

You can do code review exercises without larger context. An example from the interview: the code included a python web API and SQL schema. Some obvious points I noticed were no input validation, string concatenating for the database access (SQL injection), no input scrubbing (XSS), based on the call pattern there were some missing indices, a few bad data type choices (e.g. integer for user ID), a possible infinite lo…

In theory, you can do code reviews without larger context if the code is carefully selected. Apparently, some companies think any badly written code from their code base can just be selected though.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#322

Post by zingababba »

yungporko wrote: post #81

nah ai killed stupid tech interviews. you can easily get an idea of someones competence by literally just talking to them instead of making them do silly homework exercises and testing their rote memorisation abilities.

This is the real answer. However to gauge competence you must first have it. The fact that most people don't is why we are in this position in the first place.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#323

Post by Shorel »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #265
Shorel wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I am making the parallel because I feel exams and interviews share some similarities.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#324

Post by nickff »

solarmist wrote: post #279
joshdavham wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've (unfortunately) been interviewing the last two months and the main pattern that I've noticed is that a) big companies have terrible interview processes while b) small companies and startups are great at interviewing. Big companies need to hire tons of people and interview even more so they need some sort of scalable process for it. An early stage startup can just ask you about your past projects and pair program…

I hear this all the time, but I have yet to experience it. It may be because the small companies that I interview with are all startups, but I have yet to be able to get a call back from any other kind of small company. And the startups I do interview with have a full FAANG interview loops. There seems to be a weird selection bias that if you're FAANG or FAANG adjacent these small companies aren't interested.

>”There seems to be a weird selection bias that if you're FAANG or FAANG adjacent these small companies aren't interested.”

Many smaller companies have noticed that former and wannabe FAANGers are looking for FAANG-type jobs, and are not good fits in their niche. Small companies often have more uncertainty, fewer clear objectives, less structure, and often lower pay. They’re not a good substitute for megacorps.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#325

Post by drdaeman »

codr7 wrote: post #281
solarmist wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this all the time, but I have yet to experience it. It may be because the small companies that I interview with are all startups, but I have yet to be able to get a call back from any other kind of small company. And the startups I do interview with have a full FAANG interview loops. There seems to be a weird selection bias that if you're FAANG or FAANG adjacent these small companies aren't interested.

Yeah, been there, done that; wannabe FAANGs are the worst.

At least those are typically honest about what they try to be and give a very clear signal, right at the interview time.

It's much worse when the interview gives you different vibes (and expectations) than the actual day-to-day work.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#326

Post by lanstin »

Attummm wrote: post #287
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've been a proponent of pair programming since the early days of Agile, when it was still seen as part of extreme programming. Unfortunately, it’s not often employed in workplace settings. With that said, would your perception of the interview remain positive if the outcome had been negative? A common challenge across all interviews is a mismatch in personal dynamics, which can significantly impact the experience fo…

Or a "just start typing" person is with a "mull it over first" person. By the time I am typing code, I want to have 90% of it already completely worked out (at least till I type a "c.Lock()" and suddenly realize I hadn't considered thus and so synchronization issue.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#327

Post by lanstin »

hylaride wrote: post #249
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,…

Similarly, in general the best interviews I've ever been part of (either giving or being) turn into discussions where people's experience, opinions, and stories get aired (going both ways). You eventually get a good sense of each other and things get more relaxed when you both realize that you know what you're talking about (this is harder for Jr roles, though). Being peppered with questions very rarely gives any ins…

For junior roles, you want to interview for intelligence and shall we say an interest in learning rather than specific skills.

Even for senior roles, that's what I want to interview for, although it is true at times a business case can be made for someone that is good at some specific complex skill and doesn't need to listen to other people to do ok work.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#328

Post by [deleted] »

janoc wrote: post #256
michaelt wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Company A wants to hire an engineer, an AI could solve all their tech interview questions, so why not hire that AI instead? Interview coding questions aren't like the day-to-day job, because of the nature of an interview. In an hour-long interview, I have to be able to state the problem in a way the candidate can understand, within 10 minutes or so. We don't have time for a lecture on the intricacies of voucher cal…

>Interview coding questions aren't like the day-to-day job, because of the nature of an interview. You have missed his point. If the interview questions are such that AI can solve them, they are the wrong questions being asked, by definition. Unless that company is trying to hire a robot, of course.

[deleted]

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#329

Post by lanstin »

perlgeek wrote: post #132

Company A wants to hire an engineer, an AI could solve all their tech interview questions, so why not hire that AI instead? There's very likely a real answer to that question, and that answer should shape the way that engineer should be assessed and hired. For example, it could be that the company wants the engineer to do some kind of assessment whether a feature should be implemented at all, and if yes, in what way.…

I want to hire people who can be given some problem and will go off and work on it and come to me with questions when specs are unclear or there's some weird thing that cropped up. AI is 100% not that. You have to watch it like a 15 year old driver.

Re: AI killed the tech interview. Now what?

#330

Post by cess11 »

ryandrake wrote: post #295
williamdclt wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people have still written code for school or a hobby project School was years and years ago, and has nothing to do with my current skills. From the people i personally know, most do _not_ have a hobby project, even fewer have hobby projects that showcases their technical skills. Nor should they be expected to. Most people have non-programming hobbies. > I cannot understand how some developers have no code to s…

> It's really not that deep, I'm worried if you really cannot understand. I don't code outside of work, I'm not interested in doing it. I'm good at software engineering, not passionate about it. I have a bunch of other hobbies. There's no reason I'd have any code to show now or at any point in the future. It's like asking a dentist interview candidate to show you examples of fillings and crowns they did at home as a…

I ask for code, and if they have none prepared I ask that they spend at most two hours building something they enjoy.

I expect a decent developer to be able to bootstrap and write most of a fun toy project in a domain they know well or at worst some kata from the Internet within half an hour. Then we spend some time screen sharing and talking about it, similar to pair programming but less problem focused.

If you can't do it you'll likely struggle a lot when working with us because we commonly use throwaway prototypes.

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