AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) are now part of most developers’ daily workflow, they speed up prototyping, planning, implementation but also change how we think and debug.
I’m curious how you assess developers’ ability to leverage these tools efficiently during the recruiting process. Any tips to share? Any return on experience?
Answering with the assumption this is for interviews; we ask them to build a simple component of our app within 1 hour, using any resources they like. We judge them based on their communication (breaking down the problem), code quality, and final result.
This is indeed during interviews (question updated)
Thanks! I assume the 1-hour coding session is done live. From your experience, do candidates seem comfortable using AI tools as naturally as they would on their own?
Do you also pay attention to how they interact with these tools — for example, prompting, reviewing, or correcting suggestions?
They’re able to give an honest assessment of the ways that they’ve changed when using these tools. And how these tools changed their own day to day, and possibly their team’s.
AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.) are now part of most developers’ daily workflow, they speed up prototyping, planning, implementation but also change how we think and debug.
I’m curious how you assess developers’ ability to leverage these tools efficiently during the recruiting process. Any tips to share? Any return on experience?
Answering with the assumption this is for interviews; we ask them to build a simple component of our app within 1 hour, using any resources they like. We judge them based on their communication (breaking down the problem), code quality, and final result.
This is indeed during interviews (question updated) Thanks! I assume the 1-hour coding session is done live. From your experience, do candidates seem comfortable using AI tools as naturally as they would on their own? Do you also pay attention to how they interact with these tools — for example, prompting, reviewing, or correcting suggestions?
Let them use whatever they need. The result is the most important because that's how they will end up doing their work. Do not restrict anything.
Do you want to hire a developer with 5+ years of LLM experience? Or 3+ years of Claude experience?
Hire learners, or hire people who teach people (evaluate new tools, write guides, conduct training, mentor, etc.).
Excellent point. How do you evaluate a developer’s ability to learn and integrate new tools (like AI assistants) into their workflow?
They’re able to give an honest assessment of the ways that they’ve changed when using these tools. And how these tools changed their own day to day, and possibly their team’s.
We’re still in the early days of this.