An Anthropic hiring manager says he stopped giving coding interviews because Claude is better at them and tells junior engineers that “hunger beats tenure”
This month, I laid the traditional coding interview to rest. As a hiring manager at Anthropic, I stopped asking candidates to do them.
Felix Rieseberg
Context & Ripple Effects
Anthropic had already redesigned a performance-engineer take-home test after Claude could complete the original, while its broader hiring process had prohibited AI use in interviews. The manager’s decision applies that evidence to a live interview loop: a conventional coding exercise no longer distinguishes candidates for his team.
Candidates for the manager’s Anthropic team will no longer be screened through a traditional coding interview, shifting evaluation away from a task Claude can outperform.
Junior applicants face a more qualitative standard centered on the manager’s stated preference for hunger over tenure, rather than a standardized coding-test result.
Second-order effects
Anthropic’s recruiting teams must find replacement signals that are harder for Claude to commoditize; discussion around the change points to interviewing candidates on how they use coding agents.
Companies retaining LeetCode-style screens face a clearer mismatch with candidates who regard those tests as poor evidence of on-the-job ability, while Anthropic’s own earlier AI-use prohibition shows the transition is not simply permission to use tools.
Third-order effects
If AI-defeatable exercises lose credibility across technical hiring, entry-level recruiting will place more weight on judgment, collaboration, and tool use—attributes that are less easily scored through uniform tests.
The combination of falling entry-level technical hiring and weaker coding-test signal risks making the first rung of engineering employment less standardized, as employers substitute bespoke assessments for common interview formats.
The trend: AI coding tools are turning answer-based technical screens into a weaker hiring signal, pushing employers toward assessments of judgment and agent-assisted work.
I'm so glad AI killed LeetCode-style coding interviews. I've talked to young AI talent, and most would simply skip companies that still use LeetCode interviews. I agree with Felix. Taste, empathy, principled thinking, business sense, and agency are what really matter. [embedded p…
I'm not doing a ton of coding interviews nowadays but I'd be interested to interview how people use coding agents. That itself gives me more signals about candidate's coding skills.
The coding interview is dead, at least for my team at Anthropic. I've seen enough to know that it no longer provides signal. I removed it from loops this month. I have a spicy, optimistic take - I think there's an opportunity for junior engineers: https://felixrieseberg.com/...
the skillset I spent the past 13 years of my life mastering is essentially obsolete. once I came to terms with that, I was able to see a new world of opportunities for what they were. writing code was always just a means to an end anyway. also, incredible writing by @felixriesebe…
Code interviews are dead. Anthropic hiring manager: “I'm scanning resumes and portfolios for little prototypes that exhibit taste, empathy, and principled thinking.” MUST READ for anyone confused about how to get hired in the new era. [image] [embedded post]
if your hiring process still revolves around LeetCode, what are you actually measuring? a candidate can ace a timed problem and still miss the product context. someone newer might build a rough prototype, challenge an old assumption and move the team forward. Anthropic engineerin…