Earlier this year, after being laid off, I went through several interviews for technical roles. These interviews often involved take-home tests, coding assignments, and live coding sessions. While I completed a few, I eventually started declining most of them, finding many to be time-consuming and, frankly, ineffective.

The Limits of Coding Tests

Coding tests can serve as a basic filter for entry-level positions, but their value diminishes when applied to senior-level roles. If you’re hiring a Senior Engineer with 10–20 years of experience, coding proficiency isn’t the primary skill to assess—especially in a world where AI tools like ChatGPT can handle many coding tasks faster and more efficiently.

Instead, the focus should shift to evaluating Problem-Solving, Critical Thinking, Learning Aptitude, and Communication Skills—competencies that I find many interviews overlook. These are the skills that enable senior engineers to lead, adapt, and contribute meaningfully to a team.

The Core Skills: Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Learning, and Communication

These skills apply to candidates across all experience levels. Over the years, I’ve hired many mid-career switchers, often with limited coding backgrounds. People ask how I gauge their suitability, and my approach is simple:

  • Assess their problem-solving ability.
  • Understand their interests and what excites them.
  • Observe the quality of their questions and how well they articulate their thoughts.

While I do conduct technical screenings to ensure foundational competency, I avoid assigning time-wasting take-home tasks or algorithmic puzzles that don’t reflect real-world job demands.

Navigating the Era of AI-Assisted Interviews

The rise of AI tools this year has also transformed interviews. Candidates can now use AI dicatation off-screen to assist with technical questions, making traditional coding tests even less reliable indicators of ability.

To counter this, I focus on questions AI can’t answer effectively:

  • What are your hobbies?
  • What are you learning now, and why?
  • If you could explore something new tomorrow, what would it be?
  • What’s the most challenging or interesting project you’ve worked on?
  • How would you approach solving this real-world problem based on a scenario?

These questions help reveal a candidate’s genuine interests, adaptability, and approach to problem-solving.

The Rapid Pace of Technology

Over my 20-year career, technology has evolved very quickly. I’ve worked with Turbo Pascal, PERL, Java, PHP, C, C#/.NET, Swift, Python, JavaScript, and countless frameworks, libraries, tools and operating systems. Every shift required adaptability and a willingness to learn.

A person who can learn and adapt will thrive as technologies, tools, and frameworks continue to change.

Final Thoughts

Hiring the right people isn’t about filtering for a specific tech stack or testing for algorithmic skills your team may never need. It’s about finding individuals who can solve problems, adapt quickly, and communicate effectively. Those are the qualities that matter—and they’re what will drive your team forward.