Anthropic Manager Drops Coding Interviews, Says Claude Codes Better

An engineering manager at Anthropic has stopped putting job candidates through traditional coding interviews, according to TechRadar. Felix Rieseberg announced the change in a blog post, saying the company's Claude model now handles coding tasks better than the people it assesses.

In his post, Rieseberg said he retired the standard coding interview this month. He argued that a small React exercise tells a hiring manager nothing useful about a candidate when the AI product already performs the same work at a higher standard.

His reasoning is blunt. Rieseberg compared the old-style test to questioning applicants about low-level assembly language, noting that Claude now does better at both. If the tool beats the test-taker, the test stops measuring anything that matters, he wrote.

Rather than scrap hiring, Rieseberg is searching for a replacement. He said he looks through resumes and portfolios for small prototypes that show taste, empathy and principled thinking. A weekend spent building something with AI, then refining it, now carries more weight than a timed challenge.

He also had advice for junior engineers entering the workforce. His message is that eagerness and drive count for more than years served, and that newcomers should concentrate on making an impact. He encouraged them to learn how a company works and to understand the people inside it.

Rieseberg drew on a remark from actor and director Orson Welles about the confidence that comes from not knowing a field well. He used it to suggest that newcomers who lack experience may be less cautious and more willing to try unusual approaches.

The post suggests the shift is still a work in progress. Rieseberg said he is likely not alone among managers working out how to interview people who build effectively with AI, and he admitted he has not fully solved it.

The change lands as employers across the technology sector weigh how much weight to give coding tests. Anthropic builds Claude, so its own hiring decisions carry particular weight with engineers watching how AI affects recruitment.