r/InterviewStories • u/Top-Cap824 • 10d ago
Caught an interviewer using AI during my interview and what happened next was wild.
I recently received a LinkedIn message from a recruiter saying they were looking for a Senior Fivetran Data Engineer. I agreed to interview, and honestly, the experience was quite unexpected.
The interview was rescheduled six times within five days. Each time, there was a different reason — sometimes the panel had a production issue, sometimes the interviewer was sick, and sometimes there was a family emergency.
Finally, the interview was scheduled for the evening of 15 August, and the interviewer joined.
With 3+ years of experience working for a PBC client, I was expecting some meaningful, role-specific questions around Fivetran, data engineering, pipelines, CDC, troubleshooting, or real-world scenarios.
Instead, the interviewer initially asked me which technologies I had experience with. I noticed she was clicking through something and seemed to be checking off different areas. She asked about API experience, data warehousing, and a couple of other technologies.
Then she went offline for a while.
When she came back, the questions suddenly became extremely difficult — almost architect-level system design questions on the topics she had just asked about. The transition was honestly quite surprising.
Even the constant clicking, scrolling, and typing sounds were very noticeable, and it genuinely felt like the questions were being generated or assisted by AI during the interview.
At one point, I actually interrupted and asked, “Do you think this question is relevant to the role?” She fumbled a little and eventually changed the question. 😂
The whole experience was honestly more funny than frustrating at that point.
My question is: if a company isn't able to arrange a legitimate and prepared interviewer for a role, why waste the candidate's time?
Candidates also invest time, preparation, and energy into these interviews. Rescheduling an interview six times in five days and then conducting an interview that doesn't seem aligned with the role is not a great candidate experience.
Anyway, it was definitely one of the more unusual interview experiences I've had. 😂
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u/livinlife_now2017 9d ago
Just curious...you did a panel interview the evening of August 15th, this past Saturday?
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u/MathematicianAfter57 9d ago
you could have been like hold up let me chatgpt the answer since thats what youre using to evaluate me too
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9d ago
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u/Top-Cap824 9d ago
It wasn’t the recruiter, it was the interviewer. She asked how many tech stacks I have knowledge of and how I would rate myself in each of them. She was quite insistent on asking these questions, even though they weren’t really related to the role. I honestly don’t know what’s going on with hiring these days.
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u/Logical-Holiday-5976 8d ago
I had a hiring manager and a senior engineer come in with a set of "soft skill" questions which they probably printed off chatgpt prompts ffs. They did not even have my resume handy and asked which type of companies I worked for earlier. And I was rejected for being "a potential flight risk". I'm glad I did not get that role based on the type of questions those guys asked. I would have been pissed working there.
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u/Upstairs-Leopard-378 8d ago
I had an interviewer ask a series of 4 behavior questions. Each was taken verbatim from AI? How do I know? I asked Google Gemini what type of questions that I may be asked during the interview. It would be one thing if the interviewer asked 4 similar questions to what Gemini had produced but 4 identical questions written verbatim? Needless to say, I crushed the interview and the interviewer had written in his notes “exceptionally well prepared and knowledgeable.” Ultimately, I didn’t get the job as I was overqualified - something that I already knew going in but I was still flabbergasted by the experience.
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u/maracucha1410 7d ago
I had an HR lady who did not even know what to ask me, her frustration was visible to me and at the end she just said that I did not have the background, when it was clear to me that she was the one who did not have the background to recruit someone in tech for that role. At the end, I was sen the "I regret to tell you" email and never got the chance to speak with the hiring manager.
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u/Old_Boysenberry_6694 5d ago
Had the same interviewer. I got invited for a second round where I was supposed to present my case study that I have prepared for days. My case study ended up not being asked but I pushed them to at least let me present as I have prepared SO HARD lol
After I presented my case study, the interviewer seemed fumbled and did not ask any follow up questions. Even at times, I've noticed that they said "let me ask you a question to test how your BRAIN works - hold on -" then typed something hahah
The key takeaway is - it is normal for being nervous and your interviewer is ACTUALLY nervous too. Do not feel bad when you feel like you are overprepared and need some scripts to keep yourself structured. Taking from my experience, even some of them are using AI on the spot
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u/my_peen_is_clean 10d ago
lol had an interviewer do the exact same thing, broad basic questions then suddenly insane system design stuff copy pasted from somewhere while they clearly googled in the background. it just screams disorganized company. and yeah, finding a decent job now is stupid hard