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Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

kapwing.com

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Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#251

Post by dakiol »

disambiguation wrote: post #207

AI is a problem, so is lying, but this is a non issue already solved by the ancient tradition of in person interviews. I assume the folks at kapwing are monitoring the responses, so if you're really open to ideas then i offer the following for your consideration: The best interview I've had to date has been a live debugging challenge. Given an hour, a printed sheet of requirements, and a mini git repo of mostly worki…

Please, no. I don’t want to travel hundred of kilometres each time I want to apply for a job.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#252

Post by laichzeit0 »

theamk wrote: post #2

An interesting story! I've also had an AI cheater during phone screen, but they were pretty clumsy... A question of form "You mentioned you used TechX on your resume, tell me more what you did with it" was answered with a long-winded but generic description of TechX and zero information about their project or personal contribution. Another thing that I can take away from that is "take home project" is no longer a goo…

Don't see the point of these "take home projects". Just ask them what's the most difficult technical thing they had to do before, and have them walk you through it, probe, ask questions. If you don't like the one they talked about, ask about another one, or another one. You can generally weed out the bullshitters, they talk alot about "we" and hardly ever use "I" meaning they didn't do anything.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#253

Post by dakiol »

frogulis wrote: post #242
dakiol wrote: post #236

The guy had to invent “cool” scenarios because companies think they are Google and working in backend doing normal things won’t get you hired. One could easily have prepared the whole interview with AI without failing to explain details (like what data was being paginated) just by lying a bit more. Not lying on your actual knowledge but on what your previous jobs were about. E.g., I have used k8s in pet projects but…

While I think this view is probably apt in other situations -- and to be clear, I don't know much about the company -- all of the specific techniques mentioned on the candidate's CV and in the article are fairly "garden-variety". The pagination example seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for both sides to want to talk about, and which becomes relevant at a level of scale much smaller than Google.

imho I think the pagination example alone wouldn’t get you hired even if told correctly. In over a decade of experience my “coolest experience” related to pagination is about not using LIMIT and OFFSET because it’s not performant… but that’s 101 knowledge and doesn’t sell.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#254

Post by veunes »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #45

I keep coming back to this phrase used in this post: "it was scary". Yeah, hiring is scary. Hiring is insanely expensive on all fronts. Firing people is difficult, it's expensive and legally exposing. Hiring the wrong person, allowing them access your systems and potentially exfiltrate your IP to them is a hazardous but necessary venture. The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI. People have been lyi…

I get where you're coming from, especially on the cost of bad hires: it really is one of the riskiest bets a company makes. But I'm not convinced going back to the "fly them out and grill them on a whiteboard" era is the right answer either.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#256

Post by insin »

usefulcat wrote: post #111
masfuerte wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get an AI tool now to fix the eye movement. Sadly. I enjoy remote work but I wouldn't want to start working for a company where I had never met anyone. It seems like a great way to get scammed. One real-life interview would surely be beneficial for both sides.

I'd be very curious to see exactly what 'fixing' the eye movement actually looks like. Like are they always staring directly into the camera? Or are they sometimes randomly looking around all over the place? Cause that would look totally normal..

Example video with a side-by-side view of the real and and adjusted video:

https://twitter.com/1030/status/1615342312296534017

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#257

Post by LandR »

Cyphase wrote: post #235
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #45

I keep coming back to this phrase used in this post: "it was scary". Yeah, hiring is scary. Hiring is insanely expensive on all fronts. Firing people is difficult, it's expensive and legally exposing. Hiring the wrong person, allowing them access your systems and potentially exfiltrate your IP to them is a hazardous but necessary venture. The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI. People have been lyi…

> People have been lying about their experience for literally centuries. Millenia. Just ask Nanni what happened when he trusted Ea-nāṣir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-n%C4%81...

Man, how annoyed do you have to be with someone to carve your complaint into stone!

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#258

Post by _blk »

eikenberry wrote: post #107
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #45

I keep coming back to this phrase used in this post: "it was scary". Yeah, hiring is scary. Hiring is insanely expensive on all fronts. Firing people is difficult, it's expensive and legally exposing. Hiring the wrong person, allowing them access your systems and potentially exfiltrate your IP to them is a hazardous but necessary venture. The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI. People have been lyi…

You are right about hiring not being that much different but your prognostications are way off IMO. > - people are probably going to have to fly out for interviews, again. Fly where? Many companies don't have offices anymore. > - awkward and/or neurodivergent people are going to have to learn social skills again. Ahh... the age old, "just do better" position for neurodivergent people. Classic bigotry. > - And yeah, y…

If you have a really desirable job I wouldn't think twice about a few hours long drive/flight but eventually creativity wins the game for the hiring side. E.g. No offices, no problem: Either you recruit where you already have people or find trustees. I'd be happy to hold remote interview assist in the Colorado Springs (pot. Denver) area in my small 3ppl office if anyone from a remote-only corp doesn't have anyone on-site and wants to give it a shot...

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#259

Post by veunes »

VohuMana wrote: post #76

As someone who has conducted interviews with candidates almost certainly using AI in both the phone screen and coding portion. The biggest giveaway is the inability to explain the why of things. Even some of the simple things like "why did you initialize that class member in this method rather than in the constructor?" I think at this point we are in a world where the cat is out of the bag and it's not are you or are…

Yep, it's less about if you're using AI and more about how you're integrating it into your workflow. At this point, using AI tools is becoming a baseline expectation in many roles, not a red flag. But yeah, the moment someone can't explain the rationale behind a decision (especially in their own code) that's a huge issue.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#260

Post by veunes »

gwbas1c wrote: post #112

Some people think it's perfectly normal to stretch the truth on a resume, and to lie in an interview. Other people think an interview is just a matter of finding the "magic words" to get the job. What I don't understand is, what did the candidate do with AI? Did they use the AI as a coach? Did they use it to suggest edits to the resume? --- I once interviewed a candidate who was given my questions in advance. (I shou…

Yeah, this is the gray area we're all bumping into now
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