Ask HN: What do you think about companies requiring AI use for code interviews?

2 points·ronbenton··4 comments

I'm assuming you're thinking about whether or not to allow the interviewee to use AI to answer code-related questions or problems. I'll be honest. This is a huge debate now, given the shift of utilizing AI. However, I believe that the interviews should be a direct reflection of what the employee will be doing at the company. If that company uses AI in their workflows, then why shouldn't it be allowed in interviews? You need to see the way the user utilizes AI to solve problems or understand their thought processes.

We tried this, and found that it made it very hard to get a signal, during the limited 1 hour we had for a particular coding exercise, of what they are capable of themselves. A roll of paper towels could produce a functioning UI in React or another “exercise-sized” thing with Windsurf or Cursor, or even Copilot, in an hour.

We decided that if you were going to have them use ai the interview prompt given would probably need to be crafted with that in mind, both to give them enough to do, and to try to make it so that they’ll probably need to do some additional manual work to get to a final solution.

I think: "what on earth does that question mean?"

Is this some random hypothetical? Can you spell out your rather vague question a bit more?

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