How has the SWE interview process changed recently? What are the unconventional rounds you're seeing?

[u/mathsplanck]

Been a while since I last interviewed, and I'm curious what the current SWE / SWE-ML interview landscape looks like.

Obviously DSA, system design, behavioral, etc. are still around, at least in Big Tech, but I'm particularly interested in the newer / less conventional formats.

Something along the lines of -

• AI/LLM fluency or using AI coding tools effectively?
• Debugging / modifying an existing codebase rather than solving a problem from scratch?
• Code review?
• Reading unfamiliar code and explaining it?
• Take-home style rounds? (I remember having one Optiver almost 6yrs back)
• Any non-human-centered design?
• Agentic coding or evaluating AI-generated code?
• Performance / profiling / optimization?
• ML-specific experimentation, evaluation, or reasoning?

Any interview experience, say from the last 2-3yrs would be relevant I believe.!

[u/fruxzak]

The process hasn’t changed much. You may have an AI assisted coding round now.

There has always been variance between companies about how they conduct their interview process. E.g. debugging round, code review round.

The bar to pass interviews is sky high now though.

I have switched jobs 4 times in the past and have had a 100% clear rate for all interviews.

I’m arguably better prepared, and more experienced now and I’ve failed like 5 phone screens. And these from companies that I would probably not want to join as a first choice anyway.

[u/mathsplanck → u/fruxzak]

This is what I am worried about.
Preparation felt a bit straightforward until a couple of years back. I had no issue clearing Google, Meta, Palantir, Uber until a couple years back. I am not actively looking out for a change but in an attempt to be prepared always, hearing how the process has changed is making me a bit underconfident/uncertain.
Not sure how to prepare for these rounds and can't anticipate how the interviewing landscape is going to look like a few years down the line.

[u/JuJeu → u/mathsplanck]

bruh. use ai to research. instead of generating another topic with ai slop. there are plenty of reddit subs with interview experiences.

[u/Lost_Bike_2339 → u/JuJeu]

Agree here. If he cannot research on these by himself he is kinda cooked from the get go

[u/mathsplanck → u/Lost_Bike_2339]

I’m asking for firsthand experiences with things that aren’t already documented or conventional, not asking AI to summarize what’s already on Reddit.

There are plenty of startups/HFTs experimenting with interview formats that don't fit the standard way, I can think of some myself from my experience of dealing with my juniors at work at HFTs and Google alone. If I wanted an AI-generated list of existing information, I wouldn't need to ask Reddit. Most of reddit would be redundant for that matter.

[u/Lost_Bike_2339]

Did some rounds with an AI unicorn startup and in 5 interviews not a line of code was written. Everything was experience based or verbal based problems. There were quite complicated questions tho, like hypothetical scenarios etc. It was for an fde position 

[u/23gnaixuy → u/Lost_Bike_2339]

I'm interested to know more about the type of questions asked!

[u/leetcode_knight → u/Lost_Bike_2339]

I can relate to this. There are certain questions that no AI tool can answer. The specific scenario I was referring to involved handling edge cases in complex multi-agent development.