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A hiring manager at Anthropic said the team responsible for Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions. The manager said data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful signal; the change is reported for that team, not confirmed as a company-wide policy.
A team at Anthropic has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions after finding that data-structures-and-algorithms interviews gave it no useful hiring signal, according to a hiring manager who leads work on Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop. The account, reported by The Pragmatic Engineer, describes a team-level change; it does not establish that Anthropic has ended coding interviews across the company.
The hiring manager said the team removed coding questions from its recruitment process because the interviews did not help it assess candidates. The source identifies the manager as someone who has led development of Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop, but the supplied report does not include the manager’s name or the full details of the interview process that replaced the questions.
The stated reason is about the usefulness of the assessment, not a claim that software engineering skills no longer matter. The report says the team found zero signal from data-structures-and-algorithms interviews. That is the team’s assessment as described in the source, not published comparative data or evidence that coding interviews are ineffective at every employer.
The Pragmatic Engineer presents the change as a development that could influence other teams at Anthropic and other AI-focused startups. That is a possibility, not a confirmed response from those organizations. The report also covers unrelated workplace and AI developments, but provides no further detail on them in the material supplied here.
How Hiring Teams Measure Engineering Skill
The decision highlights a practical question for employers: whether a familiar interview exercise predicts how a candidate will perform in the job. If a team concludes that a test does not distinguish candidates meaningfully, keeping it in the process may add time without giving interviewers useful evidence. Anthropic’s reported choice may prompt other teams to review what their own technical assessments actually measure.
Removing coding questions also leaves an important design problem: what assessment takes their place? The source does not describe a replacement method. Employers still need a way to judge technical ability and job-related problem-solving, while candidates need a clear process that evaluates them consistently. Without details about the team’s alternative, the report shows a change in one part of hiring, not a fully described new model.
The scope matters to applicants and recruiters. A team-level policy at a prominent AI company can attract attention, but it does not mean candidates can expect the same interview format across Anthropic. Nor does it show that other companies have adopted the approach. For now, the news is best understood as one team questioning whether a standard interview tool is useful for its hiring.
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The Reported Interview Change
The development appears in The Pulse, a series from The Pragmatic Engineer covering events and trends in technology companies. Its account says a hiring manager at Anthropic who has led Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop disclosed that their team no longer asks coding questions of software engineering candidates.
The report specifically refers to DSA interviews—exercises focused on data structures and algorithms—and says the team found they provided no signal. It does not give a date for the policy change, explain how many candidates or roles it covers, or provide results from a formal study. Those limits distinguish the reported experience of one hiring team from a company-wide rule or an industry-wide finding.
Scope and Replacement Remain Unknown
The source does not say whether Anthropic has adopted this approach across other engineering teams, which job levels or roles are affected, or when the change took effect. It also does not explain whether the team has replaced coding questions with another technical assessment, nor how it evaluates candidates without them.
The claim that the interviews provided no useful signal is attributed to the team’s experience. The supplied material includes no hiring data, comparison with other assessment methods, or independent evidence to test that conclusion. It is also unclear whether other AI-native startups have made similar changes; the report says they could follow, but does not confirm that they have.
Whether Other Teams Follow
The next developments to watch are whether Anthropic applies the change beyond the team described and whether the hiring manager or company explains what assessment now takes the place of coding questions. The supplied report does not give a date for any further announcement or identify a planned company-wide policy change.
Other employers may review their own interview practices, but no such response is confirmed here. Until more information is available, candidates should not assume that coding exercises have disappeared from Anthropic’s wider recruitment process or from hiring at other AI companies.
Key Questions
What did Anthropic’s team change?
A team at Anthropic stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions, according to a hiring manager described by The Pragmatic Engineer.
Why did the team stop using coding questions?
The report says the team found that data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful signal for its hiring decisions. The source does not provide underlying data or a direct quotation from the manager.
Has Anthropic ended coding interviews company-wide?
No company-wide change is confirmed in the supplied report. The account describes a particular team, not Anthropic’s entire engineering recruitment process.
What will replace the coding questions?
The report does not specify a replacement assessment or explain how the team now evaluates technical skills.
Are other AI companies making the same change?
The report suggests other AI-focused startups could follow, but it does not confirm that any have changed their interview processes.
Source: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
