How’s the interview process these days?
Posted by EquivalentAbies6095@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 48 comments
Last time I went through interview rounds was in spring and summer of 2022 just before ChatGPT dropped. I’ve been thinking about starting to apply again but I not really sure how to go about the process in the age of AI.
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I know people are using told now to apply for them, do you guys recommend any?
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How has the job market been? I hear it’s starting to pick up a little from the 2025 bottom.
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How have the technical rounds been? I am used to light coding, maybe pairing o na problem, and then resume/stack deep dives. How much has this changed? Has AI made it into the technical rounds yet?
ButchDeanCA@reddit
What I’ve been seeing so far for the particularly technical rounds is that they specifically ask you not to use AI, give you a Leetcode medium question to solve, ask you about what you worked on.
This is for senior roles, btw.
vasilescur@reddit
We do a similar thing. No-AI coding interview followed by an AI-allowed homework assignment to test how well you can drive these things (taste) to make an MVP.
Seriously struggling to hire a qualified engineer in San Francisco. Our recruiting agency is ass and we have no top of funnel.
ButchDeanCA@reddit
Are you seeing people not at senior level claiming to be, or outright fails even at junior level?
vasilescur@reddit
We are only hiring for a senior position. Seeing folks who pass the remote tech screen but fail due to some reason in the onsite (lacking energy / lethargic, lacking X skill, won't answer the questions, has bad answers in our product interview, etc)
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW_W@reddit
Can you expand on this?
vasilescur@reddit
Sure, we had a candidate sit in an interview where he was supposed to drive Claude Code to build a small prototype of the system he'd just designed in the systems interview. While Claude was crunching away, instead of doing two sessions or talking about something else or planning, etc, he just say there blank face and stared at it.
Or answering questions with low energy, no enthusiasm, not even treating it like an interview or trying to give structured thought out answers. Just "yes", "no", "I guess," etc
AdjectiveNoun1234567@reddit
Why do you conduct a live coding interview when numerous studies have shown that it's not a useful metric for predicting the quality of applicants?
EquivalentAbies6095@reddit (OP)
Wow have the times changed. Before Covid seniors would rarely get any live coding questions.
AdjectiveNoun1234567@reddit
I've been asked live coding questions for over 20 years now at all levels from junior to EM, and they were and still are a ridiculous way to interview people.
ButchDeanCA@reddit
I don’t know why you got downvoted for that, but that seems true to me. I haven’t had live coding questions before COVID either.
It’s no big deal anyway having them, if you’re senior you should be able to tackle them.
spcbeck@reddit
I'm consistently getting interviews at okay-to-good companies. I don't applied to Meta, Amazon, etc because I'm not a masochist. While I'm consistently getting interviews, they are all extremely long processes, 6+ rounds scheduled on different days. So far rejected from 3 places on the final round due to being an alternate, or they decided to not fill the role (or so they told me).
I gave my references to a company last week, and I'm extremely hoping I get an offer tomorrow because my references have been called 3 times now in 1.5 months.
ultraDross@reddit
Companies take references? I don't think I've been asked to supply people I worked with before as references in this industry...
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
In 20 years, never experienced not having to get references. But I'm in the UK and worked with USA-based companies. No exceptions!
EquivalentAbies6095@reddit (OP)
That’s insane.
AdjectiveNoun1234567@reddit
That's the new normal.
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
It’s an humiliation ritual. Had to go through 5 stage of interviews for a 3 month contract and 5 years worth of references. Having to chase people I don’t talk to for years, it’s an embarrassment. Now at some point will have to do the same. Absolutely ridiculous.
considerfi@reddit
Sorry friend. I had the same months ago. So many rounds and then a no or a low-ball. It was mostly a matter of managing my mental fortitude and getting back out there again and again. I eventually got one higher than my range so hang in there.
demosthenesss@reddit
The numbers game right now is insane.
The best move is to not play and find a job introduction through your network. Otherwise assume every job you apply for has hundreds of applicants in the first day.
fsk@reddit
There are people using OpenClaw to apply to every single posted opening, using an AI generated fake resume, which only works because employers are using AI to screen resumes, which employers are forced to do due to the huge volume of fake AI resumes.
ultraDross@reddit
Tis truly depressing times
Alainx277@reddit
The circle of life
izamaverick@reddit
My boss opened a job req and had over 200 applicants within 6 hours
empathcareerservices@reddit
Agree here with not playing the numbers game, it's a losing game. Even linkedin's labor market report companies are more willing to grow internally right now. It also says that you're 3.5x more likely to land a job when connected to a person that's looking to hire
EquivalentAbies6095@reddit (OP)
Ya this is what I hear.
Whitchorence@reddit
I did an "AI interview" with Meta which totally sucked but, generally, speaking, people are just using the same processes they did before.
anonyuser415@reddit
I did my first AI interview with a $B startup. It was pretty crazy, the frontend technical was more or less building an entire application soup to nuts, in say 40 minutes.
warmeggnog@reddit
As someone who now helps screen/interview candidates for junior roles, the biggest change isn't really AI replacing interviews and more on how the standards are more rigorous. For some companies it means longer loops, but for us (and generally speaking) the typical process is still recruiter screen + technical assessment/coding or system design + behavioral and experience/resume deep dive. But we also probe harder on stuff that's harder to fake if you use AI during prep (or some do during interviews itself, lol), stuff like tradeoffs, architecture choices, debugging.
AI has made its way into some interviews, either as AI-specific questions or discussions about how you use AI tools in your workflow, but not completely imo. So my advice is usually to tailor prep to each company rather than grinding generic questions. Sometimes they ask about AI ethics or workflows, other times they're more focused on testing coding/system design, it really varies depending on the company/industry. If you can figure out the actual interview formats, question types, and role-specific expectations, that is often more valuable than broad interview prep. I can share the process I recommend for mapping out likely rounds and preparing efficiently to those interested.
ninetofivedev@reddit
It hasn’t changed once you get past the filters.
You have some companies still expecting you to write code.
You have some that will do more deep behavioral dives.
Projects have pretty much died out now as far as I can tell, and if they haven’t, well it’s pretty easy to use AI to generate something cool / fun.
devops-5281@reddit
seeing for each separate company (no FAANGs) there's at least:
Round 0: Internal/external recruiter call
Round 1: hiring manager
Round 2: tech screen
Round 3-6: virtual/onsite interview loop
Round 7: culture fit
Each one ranges from 30min-90min. Onsite loop might have 2, but often 4 separate interviews.
Also throw in any take home assignments that can pop up that vary between 45 mins and 4 hours of work to timebox and submit. Throw in Leetcode, Hackerrank easy-medium difficulty problems for a subset of tech screens. Haven't used any AI in live sessions yet.
zicher@reddit
This actually seems light compared to what I've been through
SolidDeveloper@reddit
7 rounds of interviews is light?
zicher@reddit
I think I did around 12 for one recently
FatefulDonkey@reddit
6 stages to get a no with someone better. I'm actually not applying
I moved back to my parents' house in my 30s and just trying to bootstrap my own business.
Neil_at_HackerEarth@reddit
Hey things have changed quite a bit since 2022. Most companies now throw an assessment at you before you even talk to anyone. AI tools help with applying but everyone is using the same ones so the bar to stand out is actually higher now. The ones getting through are just the people who can still think and talk through problems naturally on a call. That part has not changed.
Idea-Aggressive@reddit
They’re mostly fake job descriptions and not really hiring. Keeping a job position open for several months is not normal! You can also check current employees GitHub profiles and check their CV, contributions and compare to yours for fair comparisons. You might find it interesting, if not surprising. It’s a matter of luck!
sfscsdsf@reddit
still leetcoding
skidmark_zuckerberg@reddit
My interviews are coming from recruiters. Cold apps go nowhere, not matter how close my resume matches the JD.
I do not target big tech, typically just SaaS companies.
First round is a typical recruiter phone screen.
Second is with someone from the company talking about my resume and experience.
Third round is typical some technical assessment or systems design
Final rounds are usually behavioral and culture fit.
My take is AI has destroyed the typical job application process. A position will get hundreds of applicants based on what I’ve read recruiters saying. Then out of say 500 of the applicants, 80% are immediately filtered out (I.e. people applying from other countries, or needing sponsorship), then 10% are filtered out because they had no business even applying in the first place, then you have the remaining 10% where it’s a lottery draw who gets selected for the interview.
Just a rant but the typical job application apps like Workday or Greenhouse make it way too easy for someone to automate. There are no captchas, there are no gotcha prompt questions and LLM would trip up on, nothing. There has been no effort to fix the process. It should simply not be possible for someone to fire away and automate submitting 100 apps a day or whatever.
considerfi@reddit
Agree with all this. Searched last in fall 2025. Can only imagine it's gotten worse since then. I focused on getting interviews thru my network, however distant.
yv3sy4ng@reddit
technical rounds got weird fast. half the places i talked to last quarter banned AI entirely and went back to whiteboard style live coding because take-homes are useless now, the other half handed me a cursor session and said go, then graded how i prompted and when i pushed back on the model. the second style is way harder than it sounds. you can tell in five minutes who drives the tool vs who lets it drive them, and most people let it drive.
thedutifulfetish@reddit
the network route is the move if you can swing it. most places i've talked to say they're explicitly banning ai during live coding rounds anyway, so don't stress about needing to game that part. what's actually changed more is the volume of applications companies get now, which is why that human connection matters so much. if you've got contacts at places you want to work, lean on those hard.
jacksonz666@reddit
My experience has been that practical pytorch questions have been asked a lot more than before. Looks like they want candidates to be able to tap into the ai integration work more or less. For that reason, i have dropped leetcode and use layerforge instead.
ReaderRadish@reddit
Wildly depends on company.
EquivalentAbies6095@reddit (OP)
Please do explain. I do not plan on target big tech btw.
ReaderRadish@reddit
You may or may not get LeetCode questions. You may or may not have an AI coding agent to assist you. You may have a technical phone screen, or a technical take home, or 5 technical interviews, or none of these and talk about past projects.
Smok3dSalmon@reddit
This is real. Just be sharp and have your stories good. Be competent and honest. If you don’t know something just admit it and try a strategy of telling them about how you would approach using AI to get it done - share a precanned anecdote that you don’t want to create lots of AI-slop PRs for others, so testing is important and I used Unit Testing at blah blah blah. At least then you can leave that interview or round wondering if your strategy worked.
huge-centipede@reddit
Expect a lot of first round interviews to be all you get. IDK Maybe you'll be lucky.
DeadMonkey321@reddit
midway through some interview rounds right now, and it’s honestly not as different as I remember it being the last time I interviewed (7 years ago). Was explicitly told no AI on the coding rounds, even at the places you’d expect otherwise (eg OpenAI). Most places have followed a pattern of: - coding screen (or system design) - system design - a few behavioral interviews (are you an enjoyable person to talk to, and can you tell a story about your career?)
I’ve basically only interacted with companies through inbound recruiters and my own personal network, and I highly encourage the same if you have the option. If you have a human being you can talk to, you get to skip the whole AI application arms race. Sad to say but that battle is going to shift people back to “who do you know” because otherwise it’s just AI talking to AI.
For context tho, 14ish YOE, targeting staff-level, so YMMV otherwise
Winston_Wolfgang@reddit
It's fake. Unless you have an internal referral you're not getting an offer