Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#581

Post by zifpanachr23 » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:34 PM UTC

Kirby64 wrote: post #567

amrocha wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like such a narrow view of the world. Not necessarily discriminatory, but on the path to get there. So what if a candidate wants to look good? How you feel about your looks affects your confidence, and you want to be confident in an interview. And like, if a candidate came in with a well groomed beard would you think “he probably spends too much time on his beard, he must be a bad programmer”? I bet you do…

> So what if a candidate wants to look good? How you feel about your looks affects your confidence, and you want to be confident in an interview. Like it or not, if someone needs to wear a suit to feel confident that says something about them. It may just be a personality quirk of them unrelated to their skills, but it often is not. There’s no reason you need to wear a suit to feel confident. > You get judged on your…

[flagged]

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#582

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:37 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #534

zemo wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is lying about your experiences I think the point is that LLMs makes it easier and cheaper to produce a large volume of convincing lies. The candidate likely would not have been able to produce convincing-enough lies to get through the resume screen without LLMs.

That's true. On the other hand I have tried ChatGPT to review programming concepts or language features and I have found it very convenient and more useful than Googling. For instance if you want to prepare for a C dev interview and would like to review what 'static' means and does (one of the super usual interview questions) you can just ask and immediately get a pretty much perfect explanation without noise. It's n…

> if you want to prepare for a C dev interview

Spend an hour reading a book about C?

I have a young colleague who wanted a job at a FAANG company, and asked for advice. I said spend a couple weeks studying the leetcode books - it will be the best value for time spent you'll ever get.

He did, and got a $300,000 offer.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#583

Post by hansvm » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:38 PM UTC

_bin_ wrote: post #561

dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The issue is lying about your experiences Side note, as far as a job requirements goes the bigger issue is asking for impossibly diverse experience and asking for things that can be easily learnt. This promotes lying because the liars are the ones that are rewarded with an initial interview. I was talking to a fresh graduate with some volunteer experience who was having difficulty getting a job, and all I could hesi…

My compromise here is invisible words in the PDF. I pack it with every freaking keyword I can think of because I have absolutely no issues with lying to a robot and don't feel the need to a respect a hiring process where they can't be bothered to so much as read my resume. Funny enough I often get offers after that even when I don't have some specific technology. That said, my personal ethics don't let me lie to an a…

Interesting, that still works? I first heard about that a decade ago.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#584

Post by no_wizard » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:39 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #552

spongebobstoes wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending a few hours to write some open source code seems like a reasonable tradeoff to get a high paying job. It is surprising to me that folks looking for a new job would not do this proactively.

Because interviewers don't care. I have tons of code on my personal github page and even thought it's listed on my resume/linkedin, no interviewer has ever looked at it. This includes contributions to a widely used OSS project. YMMV, but all the high paying jobs I've received were due to knowing the tech stack they used and being able to walk through the projects that I've done in detail. Admittedly, the last time I…

>Because interviewers don't care. I have tons of code on my personal github page and even thought it's listed on my resume/linkedin, no interviewer has ever looked at i

If it helps, I do! When someone has this available on their resume, I will look around. It allows me to ask better questions, for starts.

Unfortunately, what I have found, is for every one person who has a legitimate track record of contributions and/or working/worked on projects beyond the basics, there are 100 people who simply do a bunch of cookie cutter projects to make their Github look good, but everything is shallow.

Ironically, those with the cookie cutter projects set themselves up to get weeded out easily, as there is a clear pattern of 'learning to pass the test' rather than learning to learn

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#585

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

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.

Recruiters have gone beyond keyword matching, they're now using AI to judge the resume.

> Hiring is broken

How would you, as an employer, filter out the frauds?

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#586

Post by noirbot » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:41 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #443

noirbot wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if they said not to wear something formal, that doesn't really seem like bias as much as just not following instructions. If I showed up to an interview where they said to wear a suit and I was in jeans and a polo, I'd expect to get turned down too.

A button up shirt isn't formal.

I'd mostly agree, but with them specifically calling out "not anything formal" as part of the expectations for interview attire wouldn't be the time I'd want to be riding the line of "is this too close to formal". This isn't a job at a tailor or stylist. You're not being tested on your understanding of the roles of various garments in different levels of fashion over time.

Presumably OP had seen/visited an Apple Store before and knew what employees wore there, so it's not a mystery what the uniform is, and therefore what is probably meant by "don't wear anything formal". It's not some kind of gotcha.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#587

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:43 PM UTC

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?

I had some trouble finding a sw position after leaving mechanical engineering, but I went to the interview prepared to show I could do it, and it worked.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#588

Post by Kirby64 » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:44 PM UTC

zifpanachr23 wrote: post #581

Kirby64 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what if a candidate wants to look good? How you feel about your looks affects your confidence, and you want to be confident in an interview. Like it or not, if someone needs to wear a suit to feel confident that says something about them. It may just be a personality quirk of them unrelated to their skills, but it often is not. There’s no reason you need to wear a suit to feel confident. > You get judged on your…

[flagged]

Wearing jeans and a T-shirt doesn’t make anyone a slob. Also, there’s ways you can be a slob even in a suit.

I’d suggest you reacquaint yourself with the comment guidelines, as this just is a simple ad hominem attack on me, despite not even making any claims as to what I wear to work.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#589

Post by giancarlostoro » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:44 PM UTC

iamleppert wrote: post #476

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.…

> If they say they don't remember, that's a red flag.

Is it? I can think of projects I've worked on that have come up with friends that I have no idea how they worked anymore, just barely if at all. If the project was within the last 2 years, then yeah, but if its 8 year old plus code, I don't expect anyone to remember. However, they could have looked at it when they sent it over and refresh their minds.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#590

Post by noirbot » Tue, Apr 08, 2025, 6:45 PM UTC

mathgeek wrote: post #576

noirbot wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if they said not to wear something formal, that doesn't really seem like bias as much as just not following instructions. If I showed up to an interview where they said to wear a suit and I was in jeans and a polo, I'd expect to get turned down too.

A button up shirt without a jacket, at the time, was business casual at most. What they wanted was a t-shirt and jeans. Even Walmart, when I’d worked as a teen, expected a collar and appreciated a sports coat for interviewing. Different times for sure.

Sure, but t-shirt and jeans is also what everyone working at an Apple Store wears. It'd be one thing if they didn't say what to wear - then I'd totally understand going a bit above, but if they specifically put in "not formal", then it seems reasonable to assume they mean "match the uniform generally".