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Felix Rieseberg, an Anthropic hiring manager who has led work on Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop, says his team has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions. The cited account says the team found data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful signal; it does not establish that Anthropic has ended coding interviews across the company.
Felix Rieseberg, an Anthropic hiring manager who has led Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop, says his team has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions. The team found that data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful signal, according to The Pragmatic Engineer’s report, but the account does not say Anthropic has removed coding interviews across the company.
The report describes a change to one team’s recruitment process: it no longer uses coding questions to assess software engineering candidates. Rieseberg’s statement, quoted in the report, is the basis for the account. The report does not specify when the change took effect or provide details of the team’s replacement assessment methods.
The stated reason is that the team got “zero signal” from data-structures-and-algorithms interviews. That is the team’s assessment of its hiring process, not a published study or a company-wide finding. No hiring data, evaluation criteria or comparison of interview formats is included in the supplied report.
The Pulse says other parts of Anthropic, as well as other AI-native startups, could follow. That is a possibility, not a confirmed plan. The report supplies no announcement from Anthropic describing a broader policy change, and it does not establish that the company has stopped asking candidates to demonstrate coding skills by other means.
How Engineering Hiring Could Change
The account matters because it raises a practical question for software hiring: whether traditional algorithm problems help employers identify people who can do the work they need. If a team finds that these interviews do not distinguish candidates effectively, removing them could change how applicants prepare and how interviewers use limited assessment time.
That implication should be kept in proportion. One team’s decision does not establish a trend across Anthropic or the technology industry. The report does not show whether the team’s approach improves hiring outcomes, reduces bias, or predicts job performance better. Those questions would require information about the alternative process and its results.
For candidates, the confirmed takeaway is limited: this particular team says it has stopped asking coding questions. Applicants should not assume that other Anthropic teams—or other employers—have adopted the same policy. The source gives no new guidance on the skills or exercises candidates may encounter instead.
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The Report Behind the Hiring Change
The development appears in The Pulse, a series from The Pragmatic Engineer covering events and trends in technology companies. Its report presents the interview change alongside separate items on AI spending, workplace expectations, employee exit offers and security incidents. Those other topics are not evidence for or part of Anthropic’s recruitment decision.
The specific Anthropic account is attributed to Felix Rieseberg, described as a hiring manager who has led Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop. The supplied material quotes his explanation that his team stopped asking coding questions because data-structures-and-algorithms interviews gave it no signal. It does not include a formal Anthropic policy statement or a detailed account of the team’s interview process before and after the change.
Scope and New Assessment Methods
The change’s scope is not clear beyond Rieseberg’s team. The source does not say whether other Anthropic groups have changed their interviews, whether company leadership has endorsed a broader shift, or whether the policy applies to every software engineering role on that team.
The report also leaves the replacement process unspecified. It does not say whether candidates are evaluated through practical projects, system design, work samples, other technical questions or a different format. Nor does it provide evidence measuring the old interview’s predictive value or the results of the new approach. The possibility that other AI-native startups may follow is the publication’s forward-looking assessment, not a confirmed development.
Whether Other Teams Follow
The next development to watch is whether Anthropic clarifies the policy or other teams adopt a similar approach. The supplied report announces no rollout, timetable or formal company-wide guidance, so no broader change can be treated as scheduled.
More information about the team’s alternative assessments and how it judges their effectiveness would help show what “stopping coding questions” means in practice. Until then, the confirmed news remains a team-level hiring decision and its stated rationale, rather than evidence that coding interviews have ended at Anthropic or across the industry.
Key Questions
Did Anthropic end coding interviews for all software engineering candidates?
No such company-wide change is confirmed. The report describes a decision by Felix Rieseberg’s team, not a policy covering all Anthropic teams.
Why did the team stop asking coding questions?
Rieseberg said the team found that data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided “zero signal” in its assessment of candidates.
What does the team use instead?
The supplied report does not describe a replacement interview format or say how the team now evaluates technical ability.
Are other AI companies dropping coding interviews?
The Pulse says other AI-native startups could follow, but it reports no confirmed decisions by those companies.
Source: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
