Meta informed employees it will allow some coding job candidates to use an AI assistant during interviews, according to internal communications viewed by 404 Media. The company is also asking current employees to volunteer for mock interviews that incorporate AI tools. This move highlights Silicon Valley's increasing push for engineers to embrace AI and suggests a broader shift toward hiring candidates comfortable collaborating closely with AI systems.
A recent internal post titled "AI-Enabled Interviews—Call for Mock Candidates" announced Meta's plans to develop a new interview format where candidates have access to an AI assistant. The post explained that such interviews better reflect the real developer environment future employees will encounter and aim to reduce cheating by making traditional methods less effective. Employees were invited to participate as mock candidates to help refine interview questions and shape Meta's future hiring practices.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has openly supported integrating AI deeply into engineering workflows. In a January interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg suggested that by 2025, Meta and other tech companies will likely have AI systems capable of performing tasks comparable to mid-level engineers. He envisioned a future where much of the coding is handled by AI, enabling humans to focus more on creative and complex problem-solving tasks. Zuckerberg reiterated these predictions in April, stating that within the next year and a half, most code related to AI efforts would be generated by AI itself.
While many tech companies encourage their engineers to use AI tools, allowing candidates to utilize AI assistants during interviews remains uncommon. For example, Anthropic explicitly forbids applicants from using AI assistance in interviews. The practice remains controversial among veteran engineers, who express concerns that new developers may become overly reliant on AI-generated code, potentially limiting their troubleshooting abilities when issues arise.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed to 404 Media that the company aims to integrate AI into engineering workflows and sees AI-assisted interviews as a logical extension of that goal. Given Meta's influence, other tech companies may soon adopt similar practices.
