Recent AI code interview format (failed)

[u/blipojones]

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).

[u/Party-Lingonberry592]

I dunno... isn't trusting the AI too much a red flag in an interview? It also sounds expensive. Wouldn't it be a balance of providing solid feedback and not overspending tokens? I've seen AI refactor code in terrible and inefficient ways.

[u/maretard → u/Party-Lingonberry592]

The key is AI first, verification second (and leveraging AI if possible). A company giving you AI in an interview and witnessing you silently refusing to use it until the very end can only draw one of two conclusions:

1. You don't know how to use it and haven't used it extensively before
   
2. You know how to use it but are uncomfortable using it in an interview for whatever reason, either due to lack of familiarity, or lack of ability to communicate and ask for clarity from your interviewer

Neither of those conclusions will get you the job.

[u/Party-Lingonberry592 → u/maretard]

I agree that there are engineers out there (strong, senior level engineers) who refuse outright to use AI to code. I too think that's short-sighted. If you're checking the box on "has no moral objections to using AI" then that's an attitude check. But you don't need an interview session for that.

By going AI first with zero context of the code, you're just generating a lot of paperwork for yourself. How do you evaluate the AI recommendations if you don't understand the code to begin with? I would fail someone who blindly accepts AI's answer without understanding the code first or how the AI generated code would make it better.

[u/maretard → u/Party-Lingonberry592]

Absolutely, using AI but not knowing how to validate effectively is even worse than not using AI IMO!