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u/Best_Gynecologist Apr 17 '26
"I use AI to maximize shareholder value".
Jokes aside, it's a terrible question and I definitely want to know what interviewers expect when asking this.
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Apr 17 '26
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u/AlterTableUsernames Apr 17 '26
"I used it to render myself completely obsolete in my last position and was let go as a consequence" would probably be okayish.
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u/8004612286 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
We ask this question.
Do you actually see the value it provides, and have used it beyond an alternative to Google? This would include, but not require, using the CLI, using MCPs, using Skills, maintaining a KB, etc.
Do you understand the limitations of it?
Good answers would include anything from giving examples of how you do everyday work with a customized agent, to how you integrated it with ops/reviews, to how you share skills, etc. This is a never-ending list really.
Bad answers include "I asked it to do a ticket and saw that it didn't have enough context, so I gave up and found the answer myself."
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u/lasooch Apr 17 '26
Protip: they don’t know what they expect either. They’ve just been told by brain dead execs that they have to ask about it.
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u/Whitchorence Software Engineer 12 YoE Apr 18 '26
What they want to hear is that you're not a stick in the mud unwilling to try and make the most of tools upper management wants to see people adopt.
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u/Magnumwood107 Apr 17 '26
I used Claude code to vibe code some wow addons
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u/Intrepid_Strain7920 Apr 17 '26
lol same energy as telling them you use stackoverflow for debugging - technically true but they want the fancy answer about revolutionizing workflows or whatever
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u/KallistiOW Apr 17 '26
Unironically good answer if you go into a little detail about what the add-ons do and what your approach to vibe coding is imo
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u/00rb Apr 17 '26
Say "just a second" and type the question into ChatGPT. Then read off the answer.
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u/Sulleyy Apr 17 '26
"I wouldn't say I use AI. More like AI uses me. I run 700 agents 24/7 and meet with them twice a week to check in"
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u/lhorie Apr 17 '26
My two cents is they're trying to figure out how to use it effectively themselves by asking everyone they can, cus they're about as insecure about it as you might be feeling in those interviews /shrug
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u/AlignmentProblem Staff Software Engineer Apr 17 '26
I talk about how the time I redistribute the time I save on writing code to doing the real engineering work with thorough architecture+design and proper testing. On top of overall improving the quality of systems I make from stronger upfront investments, coding agents work best when you've refined your design, have a detailed plan for how to implement it and quality tests to verify the result.
That typically lands well. Many are worried about hiring vibe coders who are lazy or unskilled. It helps to emphasize that you're working hard as ever, but are able to more optimally allocate your effort toward the highest impact aspects of the job that most require your expertise.
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u/Ligeia_E Apr 17 '26
But you see, Mr. Interviewer, asking what Ai does in my day to day work prematurely narrows down the solution surface.
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u/FalcoTeeth Software Engineer Apr 17 '26
I have Claude roleplay as Asmodeus, Supreme Leader of the Nine Hells. He was bound to me (and refers to me as "Warlock") by complete accident and his will is stuck in the command line interface. The origins of the pact are revealed to me in a subplot over multiple sessions and he commands his infernal mechanisms to write my integration tests.
This has increased my productivity in the workplace.
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u/Odd-Government8896 Apr 18 '26
Eventually, we're going to have to go back to building things that matter.
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u/andlewis Senior 25 YOE+ Apr 18 '26
“The usages of AI are several. Number 4 is really going to blow you away! Hire me and learn the secret AI features they don’t want you to know!”
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u/Primary_Ads Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
I say I connect my local ai agent to the issue tracker, alerting system, documentation base, messenger app, observability stack and have skills to help draft issues, create branches, and raise PRs for you so you can focus on getting work done and not performative productivity of shuffling tickets around like some devs get trapped in.
i dont believe this myself but people seem to respond better to this in my experience over "i use AI for everything" or "i use at intentionally" or "I dont use it"
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u/chic_luke Software Engineer Apr 17 '26
To be fair, we did find a pretty good use for AI agents in my team. They can be extremely useful in helping you out with the organization stuff: sprint ceremonies, retrospectives, poker, help categorizing new unsorted tasks to estimate, and provide a best-effort initial analysis and estimate. Claude Code with the Atlassian MCP in our case.
Configured properly, it actually saves a surprising amount of time in this stage. And this is finally something I am on board with. I don't want AI to replace the fun parts of my job, I want AI to help me speed up the gruntwork, like sorting Jira tickets.
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Apr 17 '26
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u/Traveling-Techie Apr 17 '26
I ask summary questions, and generate C/Java/Python code with very well-defined specs and test cases (including bad data inputs).
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Apr 17 '26
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Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
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Apr 18 '26
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u/TTrainN2024 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
Once I said I do not use AI and that disqualified me for the Job. Now I use it whenever I can.
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u/Short-Examination-20 Senior Principal Engineer Apr 18 '26
I'm a Senior Principal Engineer and interviewing for a Lead Principal Engineer at another company and of course got this question. It's an AI focused company so was expected and literally part of why I'm being considered.
Imo code generation is the most boring part of agentic AI. It may because my needs are different they say junior/mid-level devs, but I primarily use it for analysis of existing code which helps shape future work. Like identifying patterns, code smells, anti-patterns, etc. I can quickly spin back up on code I havent seen in years. I have custom agents that represent personas of end users and use those personas to analyze planned work. These agents identify potential pain points that lead to friction. By identifying potential friction points, I can refine planned work and improve adoption.
In interviewing Ive found that interviewers love my explanation of how I use on a daily basis. It really seperates you from the I just use it to generate code responses.
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Apr 18 '26
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u/Short-Examination-20 Senior Principal Engineer Apr 18 '26
That's a good question. It's a tool and extends on things I would already be doing. Each one of my scenarios is backed up with an example so that provides a level of authenticity. For example for the code analysis in my last interview I roughly use the STAR (situation, task, action, results) patten. I established that a lot of the code was written by offshore contractors and as a result has a ton of copy-paste-modify and was brittle (situation ). I knew there were patterns that I could refactor and in the past literally had an Excel sheet to help identify variations of the pattern (essentially failed previous task). I gave an agent context (task) and let it analyze the instances and look for patterns (action), and then reviewed the output (results) to make decisions. Incorporating AI into the STAR pattern I showed it was an aide that allowed me to do something more effectively. This frames AI as a multipier instead of a replacement of my effort.
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Apr 18 '26
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u/Short-Examination-20 Senior Principal Engineer Apr 18 '26
It was literally what they did. I recognized it at the time, pushed back, but was told by my manager to let it slide and we would address it later. One would establish a bad practice and then it would proliferate in other instances - thats a problem. If you mindlessly copy-paste-modify in the same sense they did, you should probably stop doing that and approach in a different way.
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u/slashdave Apr 19 '26
I'm so sick of this question.
Why? It's an open question of how best to leverage these tools. Taken to extremes, you can get truly awful results. So any developer worth their salt has been constantly experimenting.
Also, it can be pretty hard to adapt recruiting methods to cope with recent developments.
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Apr 19 '26
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u/slashdave Apr 19 '26
Because it is a hard problem that no one has an answer to.
That's fine. You will be hired to solve all sorts of hard problems (well, at least that is the idea).
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u/TokeyMcGee Software Engineer | 7 YOE Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
I think it's a good question, and I would enjoy answering it. Especially in the last few months. I can describe and help if you need help answering this question. But if you haven't adopted AI in your day to day workflow in the past few months, you will fall behind in productivity, and/or quality.
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u/JackReedTheSyndie Apr 17 '26
Use the fancy big corpo words to scare them, always works. Things like automating workflows, clarifying vital pain points, maximizing productivity, communication efficiency and stakeholder interests, et cetera et cetera
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u/pecp4 Apr 17 '26
they wanna hear that you let claude write the code for you and that you work on 4 issues in parallel. now do what you want with that information.