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  • The State of the Software Engineer Interview

    From Knight Shadow@46:10/200 to All on Fri Sep 18 17:54:39 2026
    Any Software Engineers here that have gone through an interview process lately? I've been curious how the interviewing landscape has changed lately with AI. In particular if any of you have had interview questions related to it, problems to solve using it, whether it seems things have shifted away from Leet Code type questions, etc.

    I've been reading/seeing about AI in terms of the actual interviewer being AI, resumes being filtered through AI, AI being used to actually create/submit resumes etc. And also how it seems like even finding a job these days is really difficult, but wanted to see if anyone has had any recent experience with any of this? I've been at my current employer for 10 years, and they are going through another round of layoffs.

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  • From fusion@46:1/616 to Knight Shadow on Mon Sep 21 18:35:54 2026
    On 18 Sep 2026, Knight Shadow said the following...

    I've been reading/seeing about AI in terms of the actual interviewer
    being AI, resumes being filtered through AI, AI being used to actually create/submit resumes etc. And also how it seems like even finding a job these days is really difficult, but wanted to see if anyone has had any recent experience with any of this? I've been at my current employer for 10 years, and they are going through another round of layoffs.

    with how many companies that are comfortable wasting people's time with interview after interview with 5 or 6 different people only to say no.. why
    not do the same to them and just apply for some stuff and check it out? if you get something the worst case is you just turn it down.. tell them you found something else. the options from there are they say ok or they try to give you more money.. lol

    you hold all the power because you already have a job. nothing says you can't just interview for stuff. and honestly i kind of wonder if they can smell employment .. you might be more confident because you don't need the job and inadvertantly impress them one more way?

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  • From Knight Shadow@46:10/200 to fusion on Mon Sep 21 15:40:27 2026
    you hold all the power because you already have a job. nothing says you can't just interview for stuff. and honestly i kind of wonder if they
    can smell employment .. you might be more confident because you don't
    need the job and inadvertantly impress them one more way?

    Great point. I really need to consider this. Just draw up everything I want in a position and then go out and try and get it. If I do, great! If not then a) I get more interview experience and b) I still have a job for the time being.

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  • From Thysa Kimbo@46:1/194 to Knight Shadow on Mon Sep 21 23:55:57 2026
    Re: The State of the Software Engineer Interview
    By: Knight Shadow to All on Fri Sep 18 2026 17:54:39

    AI, resumes being filtered through AI, AI being used to actually create/submit resumes etc. And also how it seems like even finding a job these days is really difficult, but wanted to see if anyone has had any recent experience with any of this? I've been at my current employer for 10

    Hey, I'm in a similar position. At first, I actually went against my ideals and actually tried having AI create a new resume for me, but after a while I got even fewer unsolicited contacts than I did with my old one, so I went back to it and started getting unsolicited contacts again. I know thats' apocryphal, but my experience was that the AI resume was far les effectice.

    Now as far as direct contact with employers, I'm totally frustrated as most (at least most that I've contacted) state they use AI filtering to assess resumes. I think that's the biggest problem. If you don't know up front what the bot has been trained to look for, you have no idea if you're missing something on the resume that a human would infer, but a bot can't. So you're really at the mercy of whoever decided what the bot trained on. Not sure if there's any solution, unfortunately. </rant>
    TK
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