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A hiring manager at Anthropic said their team has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions based on data structures and algorithms. The manager said those interviews produced no useful signal; the change is reported for that team, not as a company-wide policy.
A hiring manager at Anthropic said their team has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions based on data structures and algorithms, saying the interviews yielded no useful hiring signal. The change challenges a familiar screening method at a prominent AI company, but the available report describes one team’s practice, not a company-wide policy.
The report in The Pragmatic Engineer’s The Pulse cites a blog post by Felix Rieseberg, an Anthropic hiring manager who has led work on Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop. Rieseberg said the team had stopped asking candidates coding questions for software engineering roles. The report characterizes the removed questions as data-structures-and-algorithms interviews.
The stated reason was that the team got “zero signal” from those interviews. In hiring, a signal is evidence interviewers believe helps them judge a candidate’s likely performance. The claim reflects the team’s assessment of its own process; the source material does not provide interview data, a detailed explanation of how the assessment was made, or a description of the replacement assessment.
The report says the change may be followed by other groups at Anthropic or by other AI-native startups. That is a possibility, not a confirmed development. It does not say Anthropic has abolished coding interviews across the company or that other employers have adopted the same approach.
A Hiring Test Under Scrutiny
The decision puts a common engineering hiring practice under scrutiny: whether timed coding problems test the abilities a company actually needs. If a team believes a test does not help distinguish candidates, continuing to use it can consume interview time without giving hiring managers useful evidence. The report, however, does not establish that coding interviews are ineffective across employers or roles.
For candidates, the immediate practical point is limited: interview formats can vary by team, even within a company. Applicants should not assume this report means they can skip technical evaluation at Anthropic. For employers, the development may prompt questions about whether assessments should better reflect day-to-day engineering work, but the source does not specify what this team uses instead.
The issue has added relevance at an AI company, where software development practices are changing quickly. Still, the report does not attribute the interview change to AI tools or say that AI has replaced coding assessments. The confirmed point is narrower: this team’s hiring manager said the prior questions did not provide useful signal.
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A Team-Level Interview Change
The item appeared in The Pragmatic Engineer’s The Pulse, a series covering developments in technology companies and startups. Its roundup also discussed AI spending at incident.io, Amazon’s expectations for software engineers and managers, and Microsoft exit offers. Those topics are separate from the Anthropic hiring decision and do not establish a broader industry shift away from coding interviews.
The source connects the Anthropic item to Rieseberg’s blog post and describes his leadership on Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop. It does not provide a full account of the team’s recruitment process, the roles affected, or when the policy changed. The headline’s phrase “kills the coding interview” is broader than the confirmed detail: the report says one team stopped asking a particular kind of coding question.
Scope and Replacement Remain Unknown
The source does not establish whether the change applies to every engineering role on Rieseberg’s team, how long the team has used the revised approach, or whether other Anthropic teams have made similar changes. It also does not describe what assessment, if any, replaced the coding questions.
No hiring outcomes or comparative evidence are included to support the team’s conclusion that the interviews provided no signal. The report also offers no confirmation that Anthropic as a whole plans to change its process, or that other AI-native companies are considering the same step. Those points remain open rather than settled facts.
Watch for Broader Hiring Changes
The next useful indication would be further information from Anthropic or Rieseberg about the roles covered, the team’s alternative assessment methods, and whether the change has produced different hiring outcomes. The source material does not announce a company-wide review or provide a timeline for any further decision.
For now, the development should be treated as a reported practice on one team. Whether other Anthropic groups or AI-focused startups follow remains uncertain; the report says they could, but does not identify any confirmed adopters.
Key Questions
What did Anthropic change in its interviews?
A hiring manager said their team stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions based on data structures and algorithms.
Why did the team stop using those questions?
According to the report, the team found the interviews provided “zero signal”. The source does not provide supporting data or a fuller account of the evaluation.
Has Anthropic ended coding interviews company-wide?
No company-wide change is confirmed in the source. The reported decision concerns the hiring manager’s team.
What interview method replaced the coding questions?
The report does not say whether the team replaced them with another technical assessment or describe its current interview format.
Are other AI startups dropping coding interviews?
The report says other AI-native startups could follow, but does not name any that have made this change.
Source: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
