Coding interviews have become insane
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A comedic breakdown of how coding interviews have evolved at frontier AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, contrasted with everyday hiring at non-tech companies. Reddit-sourced interview loops reveal grueling take-home projects (webhook delivery systems, web crawlers, in-memory databases), line-by-line code interrogation, and system design rounds testing LLM inference APIs and profiler internals, all done without AI assistance. Meanwhile companies like Nordstrom, Walmart, and Kellogg's have adopted LeetCode-style rounds too, and in-person interviews are rising due to AI cheating concerns. The conclusion: despite the AI hype, algorithmic and system design interviews remain the standard prep path. The piece ends with a sponsored segment promoting Cursor's cloud coding agents.
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Questions this post answers
What kind of interview questions does Anthropic ask for an infrastructure engineer role?
Anthropic's infrastructure engineer interview reportedly includes an online assessment with two problems: implementing a least recently used (LRU) cache in Python with thread safety, error handling, and complexity analysis in 90 minutes, and building a task management system with priorities, assignments, and dependencies. Later rounds include building a web crawler from scratch, a system design round for an LLM inference API, and converting stack sampling profiler outputs into trace events. daily.dev surfaces real interview breakdowns for engineers prepping for infrastructure and backend roles.
What was the take-home assignment for a platform engineer interview at OpenAI?
One reported OpenAI platform engineer interview started with a take-home assignment to build a webhook delivery system within 48 hours, followed by a line-by-line code review with a senior engineer, then a system design round to design an in-memory database with basic SQL commands. The candidate was ultimately rejected due to lack of experience despite completing all rounds. daily.dev helps engineers track what real system design interviews at top AI labs actually look like.
Are companies still using LeetCode-style algorithm interviews even with AI coding tools available?
Yes, algorithm and system design interviews remain standard even outside big tech, with companies like Nordstrom, Walmart, Target, and Kellogg's reportedly running two LeetCode rounds plus a system design round for their software roles. In-person coding interviews are also becoming more common as a response to AI cheating tools during remote interviews. daily.dev keeps developers current on how hiring practices shift as AI tools reshape interview expectations.
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