Tech Company Fails to Hire After 450 Interviews, Blames Candidates Using AI Without Understanding Code

A tech company recently shared its disappointment on Reddit after failing to hire a single candidate for a junior developer role, despite receiving 12,000 applications and conducting 450 interviews. The company expressed frustration with candidates who relied heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) tools, like GPT, for coding but struggled to explain the logic or complexities behind the code they produced.

The company posted a job opening for junior Frontend/Backend developers and QA roles, offering a salary up to ₹20 lakhs. After filtering out more than 10,000 applicants due to insufficient skills or mismatched resumes, the remaining candidates went through rigorous interviews. However, when asked about the time or space complexity of their solutions or to explain their code, many were unable to provide satisfactory answers.

Despite allowing candidates to use AI tools for coding challenges, the company observed that many applicants were “copy-pasting” AI-generated code without fully understanding it, making it difficult to find developers who genuinely grasped their craft.

In its Reddit post, the company expressed concerns about the hiring process, questioning whether the issue lay in their method of selection or if the current generation of junior developers needs to understand the importance of truly learning the code rather than relying on AI for solutions.

This post sparked a debate, with several Reddit users advising the company to reassess its interview process. One user suggested that the company might be wasting too much time on ineffective interviews, while another emphasized the mismatch of expectations in the hiring process.

In response, the company clarified that its main concern was not about AI use itself, but rather that candidates should understand the solutions and logic behind their work, regardless of whether AI tools were used in the process.

The debate highlights an ongoing challenge in tech hiring, as companies seek candidates who can balance the use of advanced tools like AI with a deep understanding of fundamental coding concepts.