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Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

interviewcoder.co

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Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like leetcode easys for job interviews because it shows you know how to actually code. Many applicants cant even do fizz buzz.

And now they can do fizz buzz with AI, Cursor, Copilot, etc. If you want to filter out these candidates, bounties are the way here and in person interviews. Leetcode can't help you here.

> And now they can do fizz buzz with AI, Cursor, Copilot, etc.

No, they can't. These are the people who don't know the difference between a variable and a function call or what a module is. (90 percent of applicants.)

AI can't help them here. Even if they can copy-paste an AI response they still don't have the vocabulary to explain what they're copy-pasting even in most basic terms.

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#42

This is brilliant and necessary, Leetcode needs to die and a means to an end in the age of AI. For our business we don't use Leetcode, the future looks something like paid bounties and in person interviews. tinycorp from George Hotz does the very same thing of paid bounties to get hired there. The highly talented people will do this for fun, while those who aren't will self select themselves out. (0) https://tinygrad…

[deleted]

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#43
post #22

I've spent the last decade watching this arms race between interviewers and candidates. Last month I hired a senior dev who couldn't implement a basic database migration when we brought him on but aced our interview problems. Turned out he'd been using tools like this. The problem isn't the tools - they're inevitable. The problem is that our industry clings to this bizarre ritual where we test for skills that are com…

When I think of the hundreds of hours I’ve devoted to learning how to solve leetcode problems that could’ve otherwise been spent on learning tools, technologies, and architecture patterns that would be useful for my actual job, I genuinely feel a deep, deep sorrow.

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#45
post #22

I've spent the last decade watching this arms race between interviewers and candidates. Last month I hired a senior dev who couldn't implement a basic database migration when we brought him on but aced our interview problems. Turned out he'd been using tools like this. The problem isn't the tools - they're inevitable. The problem is that our industry clings to this bizarre ritual where we test for skills that are com…

How did you know he used tools like this one? You sit him down and interrogate him? Or did they own up to it? What was the result? Did you cut them loose?

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#46
This only results in that technical interviews won't be done remote or as homework in the future. Even before covid i wouldn't have recommended this remote interview approach. The by far best results in interviewing were a technical talk-through over their past experiences or some short pair-developer task (mob programming or refinement) were they can use whatever tool they want if they lack experience to talk about - i wanna see how they tackle real problems by asking good questions. Hardly to fake even with advanced ai tools if the interviewer is a very experienced engineer.

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#47

This is brilliant and necessary, Leetcode needs to die and a means to an end in the age of AI. For our business we don't use Leetcode, the future looks something like paid bounties and in person interviews. tinycorp from George Hotz does the very same thing of paid bounties to get hired there. The highly talented people will do this for fun, while those who aren't will self select themselves out. (0) https://tinygrad…

>Leetcode needs to die and a means to an end in the age of AI. This is just, like, your opinion. Your future employer may think otherwise, and look for people with algorithmic skills. "But leetcode is actually evil" is just your rationalisation of your cheating.

Leetcode interviews only became popular because FAANG needed a somewhat objective way to weed out large quantities of applicants in an initial round. In this context, and as part of a broader interview process, it somewhat makes sense.

But then of course, since FAANG did it, everyone else jumped on the leetcode bandwagon and started asking ridiculous DSA-exam-type questions that had nothing to do with their actual work, even if they had the capacity to conduct proper interviews for their candidate volumes.

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#48

So, am I missing something? Is this just a tool allowing job candidates to commit fraud? I'm no lawyer, so I'm not sure this would rise to the level of actual legal fraud, but moral fraud at the very least is what I think I'm seeing. EDIT: Now I see it at the bottom of the page... "Interview Coder is a desktop app designed to help job seekers ace technical interviews by providing real-time assistance with coding ques…

Pretty much every company I've applied to or worked at commits both legal and moral fraud against its employees and applicants, on an industrial scale. They've also created a broken interview process that punishes honesty and forces applicants to find creative solutions. So personally I see no moral fraud here.

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#49
I'm seeing a lot of justification for this tool (on the tool's page and in the comments here) based on the "LeetCode is bad, companies shouldn't test for orthogonal skills".

While I agree with that sentence broadly, tools like this undermine the process even for non-orthogonal skills. For instance, we administer System Design interviews and Practical Coding interviews (usually, we give the candidate a code base and ask them to make a modification to it)—things that are not LeetCode and are pretty relevant to day-to-day work. We actually let candidates use AI, as long as they show how they're using it. Tools like still undermine our process even for those types of interviews.

I'm a realist and understand that tools like this are inevitable. But I don't think they're ethical, and I think the "Fuck Leetcode" argument justifies their existence. In general, trickery is wrong (whether it's companies doing it, or candidates).

Re: Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

#50
post #22

I've spent the last decade watching this arms race between interviewers and candidates. Last month I hired a senior dev who couldn't implement a basic database migration when we brought him on but aced our interview problems. Turned out he'd been using tools like this. The problem isn't the tools - they're inevitable. The problem is that our industry clings to this bizarre ritual where we test for skills that are com…

> The problem is that our industry clings to this bizarre ritual where we test for skills that are completely orthogonal to the actual job.

I agree. And it's not a good sign for the industry when engineers have to spend months working up to being good at answering these questions just to get the job.

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