For years, many companies have leaned heavily on leetcode-style algorithm problems in their interviews. I know many of us have always felt this was a questionable signal for real-world engineering skill, since most software engineers rarely (if ever) write novel algorithms during their day-to-day.
Now, with LLMs performing extremely well on these problems, the gap between “can solve interview puzzles” and “can do the job” seems wider than ever. In reality, a competent engineer today is quite likely to use an LLM to help solve such problems, so now the skill we’re testing in an interview isn’t even how they’d work in practice.
So my question is: Where do you think the software engineering interview process is heading next? Will we move toward more real-world scenarios? Systems design? Pair programming with AI in the loop? Something else entirely?
Curious to hear what trends you’re seeing or experimenting with at your companies.