💻 Anthropic Team Lead Ditches Coding Interviews
Anthropic engineering manager Felix Rieseberg (Claude.ai, Claude Code) removed coding tasks from his team's hiring process in October 2026. Instead of code, they now look at resumes and portfolios with prototypes that show taste and empathy for the user.
🌍 React challenges and assembly questions were previously a "weak but useful" predictor, but are now useless: "Claude is now better at both." The ability to define problems and work with AI agents is valued. Two newcomers built an interface for Claude Code over a weekend, with a public release eight days later.
👤 For juniors and those changing jobs: memorizing "algorithms and data structures" for whiteboard interviews is becoming less important; a working prototype over a weekend and the ability to find "friction" in a product are more valuable.
Source 1: https://felixrieseberg.com/hunger-beats-tenure-advice-for-junior-engineers/ Source 2: https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/10/28/anthropic-engineer-declares-the-coding-interview-dead/5306115