Anthropic Hiring Lead Drops Coding Interviews Because AI Can Pass Them Easily

Anthropic hiring manager and Claude product engineering lead Felix Rieseberg said his team has dropped traditional coding questions from interviews, calling coding interviews dead, at least for his team.

He believes that since Claude can easily handle small React challenges and even low-level assembly problems, using coding tests to screen engineers no longer makes sense. These interviews measure AI's ability, not a candidate's real judgment, product taste, or teamwork skills.

He also advised junior engineers that in the AI era, with the cost of execution falling sharply, seniority no longer decides influence. Instead of waiting for full requirement docs or cross-team approvals, use a fresh perspective and AI tools to build a working prototype over a weekend and win support with real results. He sums it up as hunger beats seniority.