from Hacker News

Ask HN: In the day of AI what's best for coding tests/takeaway projects?

by edf13 on 5/7/24, 8:58 AM with 13 comments

In the past I’ve set developers a small take home project/task.

However in the age of AI this can be easily completed with ChatGPT… what’s everyone’s go to for interview tasks?

  • by philomath_mn on 5/7/24, 3:51 PM

    The only way around this is to sit with the candidate and carefully review the code they submit. Ask about design decisions and navigate the design space together (How would things change if memory were most important? What if input were 1e6 times bigger?)

    You could also show them another solution (maybe one with a bug?) and ask them to explain it and compare with their solution.

    If they are leaning heavily on an LLM it should show up during the follow-on discussion.

  • by wryoak on 5/7/24, 9:06 AM

    What are you trying to accomplish with these take home tests to begin with? If they can successfully solve it with ChatGPT that implies they understand how to use tools which are paramount to developer success. Do you want them to waste a bunch of their time solving a pointless problem? Is that how you treat your employees, too?

  • by b20000 on 5/7/24, 4:32 PM

    you can fire someone immediately in the US. so i don’t understand why any of this is necessary in hiring.