Anthropic drops coding interviews, says AI outperforms humans
Anthropic’s engineering manager Felix Rieseberg has stopped using coding interviews in his team’s hiring process, arguing that AI tools like Claude now outperform human candidates in such tests. He emphasized that impact and ambition are now the decisive factors for hiring and promotions.
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Why coding interviews were dropped
Felix Rieseberg, engineering manager at Anthropic, has eliminated coding interviews from his team’s hiring process. In reporting by The Next Web, he stated that AI tools like Claude are now better at solving coding challenges than human candidates. Rieseberg, who leads engineering for Claude.ai, Claude Code Desktop, and Anthropic’s Cowork tool, previously worked at Notion, Stripe, Slack, and Microsoft.
Rieseberg acknowledged that small coding challenges were once a "weak but useful predictor" of success on his teams. However, he noted that his most impactful engineers now succeed regardless of their coding test scores, signaling a shift in how engineering talent is evaluated.
What Anthropic prioritizes instead
Rieseberg now prioritizes impact and ambition over traditional metrics like tenure or coding test performance. He highlighted that newer engineers can surpass more experienced colleagues if they demonstrate these qualities.
This shift was illustrated by two Anthropic engineers, Anthony Morris and Alice Zhao, who built a prototype graphical interface for Claude Code over a weekend. The first public version shipped roughly eight days later.
When asked how to identify engineers who build effectively with AI, Rieseberg said he has not yet developed a reliable interview process for this skill.
How other tech companies are adapting
Anthropic is not alone in rethinking engineering evaluations. According to The Next Web, Google is expanding pilots of engineering interviews that allow candidates to use Gemini, its AI assistant. Meanwhile, Amazon has reportedly warned its engineers against chasing AI usage metrics, a practice internally dubbed "tokenmaxxing."
Anthropic has claimed that Claude now writes 80% of its own code, further reducing the relevance of traditional coding tests.
Earlier signals on AI in hiring
This move aligns with broader industry shifts, including Amazon’s recent directive to curb indiscriminate AI usage. Earlier reporting by Lazyfounder highlighted Amazon’s dismantling of an internal AI adoption leaderboard, signaling a pushback against over-reliance on AI metrics without measurable benefits.
What this means
Lazyfounder analysis — our interpretation, not reported fact.
Rieseberg’s decision reflects a growing tension between traditional engineering skills and the capabilities of AI tools. For founders and operators, this signals that hiring practices may need to evolve beyond technical assessments—especially in AI-driven companies. The shift could also pressure startups to rethink how they evaluate engineering talent, particularly if they lack the resources to develop proprietary AI tools. Importantly, this change underscores that ambition and impact are becoming the new differentiators, even if the methods to assess them remain unresolved.
Related on Lazyfounder
Sources
- The Next Web · 2026-10-28
Anthropic manager drops coding interviews because Claude is better at them
This story is an original summary drafted with AI by Lazyfounder from the reporting listed above and checked by automated validation. Facts are attributed to their original publishers; sections marked as analysis are Lazyfounder's. Where a source is in another language, facts were machine-translated and quotations are reported, not reproduced. Read the original coverage via the links, and see our AI policy and corrections policy.
About the author
Editor, Lazyfounder
Tarun Mottlia edits LazyFounders, covering Indian startups, funding rounds, AI and product launches. Every story on the site is AI-assisted and checked against its cited sources before publication.
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