Like everything else around ChatGPT and other AI tools, the implications for developers and technical hiring have caused some unwarranted pearl-clutching and dark doomsday scenarios. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nHow can companies trust they\u2019re hiring great developer talent if AI tools make getting take-home answers irrelevant? Are technical interviews even meaningful anymore? What if anyone can pass this interview now? Isn\u2019t using an AI tool to pass a technical interview cheating?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Sigh. (And, as an aside, have you ever noticed that it\u2019s only when tools open the door to helping more <\/em>people \u2013 ahem, non-white, non-bros \u2013 accelerate or benefit that the heart palpitations around \u201cfairness\u201d and \u201ccheating\u201d seems to occur?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s a hot take. You should be saying: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWow, a smart and curious person can spend time with AI tools and self-study coding and come up with a solid answer – that\u2019s potentially equal to the work of people on your team. Hey, this means we can bias more toward hiring a motivated, curious, self-starting brain who works at problem solving and less toward a brain attached to a pedigreed resume, elite university degree, and socioeconomic status. I wonder if this will open the doors to entirely new groups of people to work in software development and create all new jobs and software solutions \u2013 what could we possibly create for our company?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The collective anxiety around generative AI seems like early man\u2019s fear of fire. Like do you really, sincerely want to go back to a time when paradigm-shifting tools aren\u2019t available? I know \u2013 let\u2019s just give up the wheel while we\u2019re at it. Let curiosity reign instead. Why not ask, how can tools make things better, more fair, more efficient?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We need to view AI as an opportunity for democratization of skills. It doesn\u2019t mean just anyone can create software that solves the world\u2019s problems. You still need people with drive, intellectual curiosity, energy, understanding of what they\u2019re crafting, and an innovative spirit to turn out something worth creating and refining. But the opportunities for enabling more creators and more creators to do it more efficiently are awesome. Take this study<\/a> which showed that AI actually increased worker productivity by 14%!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also an incredible acceleration opportunity for diversity. Now we can have people who have all kinds of brains and backgrounds applying their unique lenses to problems and opportunities. That\u2019s so much better than always having the same overpriced engineers from Stanford and MIT apply similar approaches and \u2013 inevitably \u2013 getting the same outcomes. More diverse brains create better outcomes as we know (and the research clearly bears out).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using tools like this in a technical interview setting isn\u2019t cheating. It\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s resourceful. Why wouldn\u2019t I, as a CEO, want someone who is smart enough to understand and make use of publicly available tools? It isn\u2019t really new. This is already happening in the everyday work environment<\/em> \u2013 developers and engineers find and use open source code, then augment, refine, and ship it. So what\u2019s the problem? I don\u2019t see one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n