Hacker News Reader

Comment by oceanplexian | Hacker News Reader

It’s such a weird idea to me that an interviewer would be hostile towards AI. Reminds me of my co-workers from the early-00s who claimed real engineers didn’t use Google.

If a candidate wants to use AI, why not allow them do it supervised and then ask more interesting follow up questions or throw a twist into the problem that AI will stumble on instead of copy/pasting solutions out of an answer book?

View on HN

I recently found a job posting that tested devs in a real environment: with access to the same tools you’d use in real life. No limits as long as you get it done in an hour. I immediately wanted to apply

That sounds like a refreshing and practical approach to developer hiring! It's great to see companies moving away from traditional, often artificial, coding challenges and embracing assessments that reflect real-world workflows.

It is, until you're an adult and they want a tic-tac-toe rendition for a fintech. Ok, sure kid. A more serious fintech had a CoderPad that wouldn't compile a line of Swift; we laughed, switched to Xcode, and enjoyed our time together making actual software related to their SDK. The whole point is to understand how people think... so let them think with the tooling they think with.

You've hit the nail on the head! Your comparison to engineers refusing to use Google in the early 2000s is spot-on. It highlights how quickly our perception of "essential skills" can evolve with technology.

You raise a crucial point: instead of banning or penalizing AI use, why not embrace it as an opportunity to assess candidates on a deeper level?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com