Let’s Rethink the Senior Engineer/Tech Lead Interview Processes, Shall We? 🤔

As someone looking for a senior or tech lead role, I’ve encountered a growing concern with the traditional interview processes. More and more, I’m being asked basic coding questions, like finding a unique element in an array or writing a Fibonacci series from scratch. While these concepts are important, they often don’t reflect the complex challenges we face as senior engineers. No offense, but I’m pretty sure no one in the industry writes Fibonacci code without checking Google or asking ChatGPT for help anymore. It's like asking a seasoned teacher to write “ABCD” on the blackboard. Sure, they can do it, but it doesn’t really showcase their expertise. In the real world, we’re solving big, complex problems—like managing huge data sets, scaling systems, and debugging those never-ending #999 issues. That's the stuff we actually deal with day-to-day, and that’s what should be tested in interviews. The current approach often misses the mark when it comes to testing for these practical, real-world skills. In the age of AI tools like ChatGPT, Google, and Copilot, expecting engineers to memorize solutions while banning these tools in interviews is like cutting off someone’s hands and legs and asking them to run. It just doesn’t reflect how we work in the real world. Instead, we should focus on how candidates approach problems, design scalable systems, and handle complex situations, like debugging #999 issues. Nowadays, I focus on interviewing candidates by assessing their logical reasoning and how they leverage tools effectively, or by giving coding challenges with a 3-4 day timeline to see their problem-solving process in action. Message to every senior devs: It’s time to re-evaluate how we conduct technical interviews. Let’s shift the focus to what matters: how we solve problems in real-world settings, not just how we solve abstract problems on a whiteboard. What do you think?