AI has upended what it means to be a software developer. It also changes the way you become one.
Before the AI boom, software engineering interviews revolved around writing code from memory, solving algorithmic puzzles, and demonstrating technical speed under pressure.
Today, CEOs scour GitHub and X for undiscovered talent. Encourage candidates to use AI in interviews and increasingly hire based on judgment and taste.
For the millions of software developers around the world, this means navigating a completely different job market than just a few years ago.
Le’ale Addison, a young computer scientist who completed internships at Amazon and KPMG before landing a technology internship at packaging company Smurfit Westrock, has witnessed this change firsthand.
AI has become so proficient at writing code that it is now commonplace in technical interviews.
Karen Haberberg for BI
Two years ago, the 22-year-old said she was required to share her screen during technical exams to ensure she didn’t cheat. In her senior year, Addison said she could openly use AI or Google to search for answers in real time.
During her last job search a few months ago, interviews from employers were peppered with questions about AI: How familiar was she with machine learning? What about natural language processing? How did she use AI in her current workflow – and how would she use it in her new job?
“These questions haven’t been asked before,” Addison said.
Addison’s experience reflects a broader realignment across the tech world, with companies like Dropbox and Cisco asking engineers to demonstrate their AI skills during the hiring process.
Anyone looking to gain a foothold in a changing industry or find their next opportunity faces a competitive market. According to a 2025 report by HackerRank, 74% of developers are struggling to find a job, even as the number of new hires is increasing.
Business Insider spoke to tech companies, AI startups and career coaches to answer one overarching question: What does it take to get a job as a programmer when AI writes most of the code?
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Goodbye resumes, hello GitHub
Big tech companies, including Google and Meta, are vying for the best AI engineering talent, offering eye-popping compensation and access to computing power.
Start-ups have now become creative in recruiting potential employees. Executives at AI coding startups Cognition, Base44 and Replit say this Search for engineers regularly by browsing X-Posts and GitHub Pages, two platforms where engineers post their latest projects to be praised – or picked apart – by their peers.
At Replit, X is quickly becoming the “main medium” for recruiting, said Stacey La Torre, the company’s chief people officer. They also let ordinary employees go hunting.
Xavier Contreras, head of data engineering at a hedge fund, has been building, designing and maintaining systems for about a decade.
Karen Haberberg for BI
“We have a Slack channel called ‘Talent Spot’ where people can basically say, ‘Hey, I connected with this person on LinkedIn, or I met them at a conference or at X,” La Torre said.
Emily Cohen, human resources and operations manager at Cognition, said that every employee at the company considers finding talent part of their responsibility and that she herself has flown around the world to convince good engineers to join the startup.
“Just last week, I drove a candidate to the airport because I wanted to be the last person he spoke to before he left San Francisco,” Cohen told Business Insider.
AI takes over the technical interview
It’s not just where companies find talent. Vibe coding has changed the way employers interview – and what they want to hear from candidates.
LeetCode, an online platform for assessing candidate skills, was once a rite of passage for candidates. Now it is only the first hurdle, if it is included at all.
Xavier Contreras, a New York City-based data engineering manager at a hedge fund, has been building, designing and maintaining systems for about a decade. His last job search, he said, looked completely different than the one he went through five or six years ago.
Back then, interviews revolved around coding challenges, he said. During his most recent job search, he was asked to explain his reasoning to interviewers, such as explaining the architecture behind the projects he built or defending engineering decisions. When he was given take-home tasks, He was allowed to use AI for work that would previously have taken a month. With AI, the expected time frame was three days.
Contreras said that AI has brought together software engineering, data analysis and data science.
Karen Haberberg for BI
With AI now able to do more routine work, employers want to know that their employees understand what the technology is doing – and can correct it if it veers off course.
The most valuable technical skills today are systems thinking, problem solving and the ability to quickly run new agent systems, said Erin Scruggs, head of global talent acquisition at LinkedIn.
“Organizations need people who can translate complexity, make decisions about how systems behave and lead teams through rapid technological change,” Scruggs said.
This leads some companies to conduct tests that provide a more comprehensive overview of a candidate’s skills. Scott McGuckin, vice president of global talent acquisition at Cisco, said the company is moving from technical coding challenges to project-based exercises. The company also integrates AI-powered development Integrate environments into interviews to observe how candidates perform in an AI-powered workflow.
“The human element of oversight and expertise is more important than ever,” he said.
Search for “data unicorns”
The shift towards AI-supported aptitude tests That doesn’t mean technical accuracy is no longer important. Sundeep Teki, a career coach who helps place talent in AI research labs, said the technical bar for roles at sought-after companies like OpenAI and Anthropic is constantly evolving and getting higher.
In addition to the technical know-how, AI knowledge and soft skills required to excel on the job, companies are increasingly placing more emphasis on cultural fit. He said that Anthropic, for example, includes a specific, non-technical culture interview for each role. He said if a candidate doesn’t seem to agree with the company’s mission, they often won’t make it.
Is there another way to find out if someone fits your team’s culture? Ask them to start working.
Work trials where candidates appear in person and work with their potential team are becoming increasingly popular. AI programming startups like Lovable, Cursor, and Kilo all run tests to show both candidates and companies whether they are a good fit.
“You will meet all of us in Amsterdam and start in person, and you will be expected to deliver the relevant product the next day,” CEO Scott Breitenother said of Kilo’s latest overseas bootcamp. “Many people take PTO from their current job, come to work at Kilo for our focus week, and then when they make it, they will quit their job.”
One reason the hiring process looks different is that the positions themselves have changed. In the age of AI, where many aspects of a developer’s traditional job have been automated, technical roles are blending and employers are looking for candidates with broader, more versatile skills – a jack-of-all-trades who can adapt across functions.
Contreras, the hedge fund data engineer, said software development, data analysis and data science are all under one roof. This means different skills are required to get the job – and keep it.
“They want to hire one person to fill the role of three,” Contreras said.
As employers seemingly continually refine their requirements, companies are on the hunt for what Contreras calls “data unicorns.”
“It’s a lot more hectic,” he said. “There’s just so much more information to know now.”
What do you think about how the software engineering industry is changing? Let us know below:
https://www.businessinsider.com/software-engineering-job-technical-interviews-hiring-ai-2026-7
