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Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

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Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#471

Post by FirmwareBurner »

rafaelmn wrote: post #460
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They say they "use AI to match the keywords in job description". If recruiters only pick up your resumes based on keyword matching themselves, what is one to do, if not adapt their resumes to said keywords so they can at least try to get to a human interview? Not talking about India specifically, but in general. Hiring is broken, so everyone tries to fix it in their own ways to maximize their chances.

> what is one to do Find roles where your skills match the required skills ?

What if there are no open positions on my experience and I have to pivot to another completely different tech stack that I studied in my spare time? What then? Should I be unemployed?

We're still taking about SW engineering here, not medicine or rocket science.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#472

Post by dan_quixote »

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…

> awkward and/or neurodivergent people are going to have to learn social skills again.

Whatever future interviews look like, I sure as hell hope we don't maintain this ^ attitude.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#473

Post by AlienRobot »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #308
dakiol wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What’s the better way to do pagination?

You don't use OFFSET because the btree index just sorts the rows from smallest to largest. It can quickly get the first 30 rows, but it can't quickly figure out where the 30th or the nth row is. When pagination is crawled it will crawl the whole table, so it's important that the worst case performs well.

The fix to this is to paginate by saying "give me 30 rows after X" where X is an unique indexed value, e.g. the primary key of the row. The RDBMS can quickly find X and 30 rows after X in the sorted index.

This makes it hard to implement a "previous page" button but nowadays everything is a feed with just a "show more" button so it doesn't matter much.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#474

Post by a_t48 »

On the topic of interview prep - is it weird that I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it? I can’t be the only one, right? As best as I can tell it’s never really hurt me (okay, there was a Google interview I failed where grinding a few leetcodes might have helped…).

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#475

Post by cutemonster »

NullPrefix wrote: post #388
Aurornis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI I agree that lying was possible before AI, but something about AI has emboldened a lot more people to try to lie. Something about having the machine fabricate the lie for you seems to lessen the guilt of lying. There's also a growing sentiment online that using AI to cheat/lie is "fair" because they think companies are using AI to screen candidates. It's not…

>There's also a growing sentiment online that using AI to cheat/lie is "fair" because they think companies are using AI to screen candidates. It's not logically consistent How is it not logically consistent?

Using AI to review and improve your CV would make sense, just as you can ask a person for help and review.

But not using it for creating lies and pretending you're skilled in areas where you're not.

Or would you say that if HR uses humans to screen CVs, you can cheat by using a friend's CV instead (using a human, like HR)

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#476

Post by iamleppert »

It's really easy to catch these scammers. Ask for a non-trivial code or work sample, something they have written. Actually take the time to read through the code and understand at least a part of it. In an interview, ask them some questions about it. People who actually wrote the code or did the thing can talk at length about about what they did, the history behind it, trade offs, have colorful stories about it, etc. I don't even care exactly about the technical details of it, I'm looking for signals that they are a liar.

If they say they don't remember, that's a red flag. If they can't describe how something works, that's a bigger red flag. You're not looking for photographic memory, but it's very obvious once you do it a few times who is real and who is lying.

It's common sense, if you don't put in at least a tiny bit of effort in your hiring process, you can only expect to attract similar low effort candidates.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#477

Post by never_inline »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #435
never_inline wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In India I know people using AI to craft resumes with half-lies and full-lies. They say they "use AI to match the keywords in job description". Indian SDE market is an extreme case of Goodheart's law, but that's a topic for another day!

> They say they "use AI to match the keywords in job description". If recruiters only pick up your resumes based on keyword matching themselves, what is one to do, if not adapt their resumes to said keywords so they can at least try to get to a human interview? Not talking about India specifically, but in general. Hiring is broken, so everyone tries to fix it in their own ways to maximize their chances.

AI will often casually lie / make up points which sound authentic.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#478

Post by zelphirkalt »

siva7 wrote: post #227
jaredklewis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - And yeah, you guys, it's time to buy a suit. Others have already commented on this, but do you work in tech? IME getting interviewed by directors and even VPs in t-shirts is the norm. I’ve worn jeans to work my whole career. If anything, I think people in tech have a strong prejudice against people in suits (ie “obviously this person isn’t a real software engineer, they’re wearing a suit.”) Anyway, probably not g…

I wouldn't take that advice seriously. Suit in tech would be awkward (even for most mgmt roles). Tech pioneered the concept that you don't need a suit to get the pay of a suit. You can be yourself.

Seeing someone wearing a suit for a dev interview would make me think one of the following:

(1) This person really really needs the job. Probably is in a bad negotiation position, due to this urgent need.

(2) Are you here to impress people with looks, or with your skills?

(3) They take looks way more serious than they should, maybe not focussing enough on the technical side of things.

(4) Hopefully this is not an "EnTeRpRiSe software" developer, and if they are, hopefully they don't work on my team and if they are, hopefully my next up manager does not get blinded by fancy clothes, instead of technical reasoning.

That said, I would try to keep an open mind about the person, but they would be initially sorted into the category of managerial or close to management, rather than close to the other engineers, which is not a positive signal to send.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#479

Post by astroalex »

a_t48 wrote: post #474

On the topic of interview prep - is it weird that I’ve never been able to bring myself to do it? I can’t be the only one, right? As best as I can tell it’s never really hurt me (okay, there was a Google interview I failed where grinding a few leetcodes might have helped…).

If you are trying to advance your career, I feel prepping for interviews is probably the number one most important thing you can do, unless you are freakishly gifted at acing interviews with no prep.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#480

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #471
rafaelmn wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is one to do Find roles where your skills match the required skills ?

What if there are no open positions on my experience and I have to pivot to another completely different tech stack that I studied in my spare time? What then? Should I be unemployed? We're still taking about SW engineering here, not medicine or rocket science.

> What if there are no open positions on my experience and I have to pivot to another completely different tech stack that I studied in my spare time? What then? Should I be unemployed?

If you studied and worked with the tech in your free time, you can say so, and show your work. If not, this is the same as lying anywhere else. What if I want to perform brain surgery, but I'm not qualified? Should I be unemployed? Of course I should, as far as brain surgery goes, but there are other jobs out there I can do while I train.

> We're still taking about SW engineering here, not medicine or rocket science.

SW engineering is a critical component of both medicine and rocket science, and doing it wrong can kill people. Beyond that, you'd be harming others by taking the job from someone who put in the work to actually be qualified, and harming your future coworkers by deceiving them.

So the real answer to your question depends on how much you value other people and your principles, compared to valuing yourself and getting what you want. If you don't want to wrestle with that, just add some personal projects to your personal studying.

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