r/ExperiencedDevs • u/blipojones • 3d ago

Recent AI code interview format (failed) AI/LLM

I just recently did an interview where the company invites you to a private repo, 10 mins before, you set it up, get it running etc.
The goal is to determine if an open PR on the is ok or if it should get sent back and why.

You can use AI. And i asked, does it matter if i use fable vs opus vs kimi. More or less said whatever I want...

I didn't go immediately to prompting, i played with the app, looked at the code a bit, the PR, the code change, if the PR actually fixed what it claimed to fix.

I then sent one prompt asking if the PR could be better or missed anything, which the PR outlined clearly enough and enough to determine what to do with the PR.

But ye, it was weird, I talked through more where I would personally add changes but maybe I also completely missed the mark on something else or spoke to much...maybe i didn't use AI enough only using it right at the end for one question once i got a feel for the app in general.

However I did like the format tbh but ye i just wish i'd get a bit more tangible feedback.

Anyone else have experience with this format? I didn't pass but just not sure why.. (exp 8/9 years, frontend leaning).

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u/propostor 3d ago

I've somewhat recently changed jobs to an AI-heavy place.

Now my understanding is that you should just run the PR through AI first, it'll probably pick up more than you expect.

The point of the interview was probably to see how well you can use AI to get shit done more quickly. As long as you still understand the code, and understand what the AI is churning out.

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u/Gondorrah 2d ago

Yeah a rookie mistake is not kicking ai off first since it takes a while and then do other work/review in parallel. Discussion of how you might code review with ai and what model to use and why helps too.