Interview Coder is an invisible AI for technical interviews

Role of Interview Coder & AI Tools in Interviews

• Many see Interview Coder as a straightforward cheating/fraud aid: an invisible assistant to pass technical screens.
• Others frame it as a defense against a “broken” interview system (LeetCode-style questions, performative coding) that doesn’t reflect real work.
• Some argue that if AI can do the work required in the interview, then maybe that’s the “correct” outcome for those roles.

LeetCode, FizzBuzz, and Algorithmic Tests

• Strong backlash against LeetCode/DSA interviews: viewed as cargo-culted from FAANG, orthogonal to real work, wasteful, and increasingly obsolete in the AI era.
• Minority defends basic coding screens (e.g., FizzBuzz, “easy” LeetCode) as necessary sanity checks, noting many applicants can’t code at all.
• Others say even simple problems can be easily solved with AI now, undermining their value.

Ethics: Cheating vs Broken System

• One camp: using tools like this is moral/actual fraud; you either play the game honestly or walk away.
• Another camp: the hiring “game” is rigged and often deceptive itself; cheating is seen as survival, especially in harsh job markets.
• Debate over “two wrongs”: whether employer misrepresentation justifies candidate dishonesty.
• Some insist honesty is core to engineering; others emphasize material survival over abstract ethics.

Adaptations: In-Person & Real-Work Interviews

• Many predict/advocate a return to on-site, supervised interviews and bounties/pair-programming as AI-resistant filters.
• Approaches praised in the thread:
  • Pair programming on real or realistic codebases with full access to Google/docs/AI, while observing reasoning.
  • System design or “talk shop” conversations with occasional deep dives.
  • PR/code review exercises and “open-book” tasks tuned to where current LLMs still struggle.
• Concerns that on-site-only interviewing increases hiring cost, skews towards big/well-funded companies, and excludes people with less free time or flexibility.

Arms Race & Detection

• Interviewers report already seeing AI-assisted cheating and even impersonation (different person at interview vs on the job).
• Some claim they can often spot AI use via pacing, eye movement, unnatural answer patterns.
• General sense that AI is accelerating an arms race between candidates gaming tests and companies trying to “cheat-proof” hiring.