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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. He said data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful signal; the report does not establish that Anthropic has changed its company-wide hiring process.
Anthropic engineering manager Felix Rieseberg says his team has stopped asking software engineering candidates coding questions after finding that data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided no useful hiring signal. The change applies to the team he has led, including work on Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop; the report does not say Anthropic has abandoned coding interviews across the company.
Rieseberg described the team’s decision in a blog post, cited by The Pragmatic Engineer’s The Pulse newsletter. The account characterizes the interviews as producing “zero signal” for the team. That is the team’s reported assessment, not a published study or a company-wide finding.
The change concerns coding questions used in software engineering recruitment, specifically the familiar interview format focused on data structures and algorithms. The source material does not describe what exercises or evaluation methods replaced those questions, how long the team had used the format, or whether the decision has affected hiring outcomes.
The newsletter presents the decision as a development to watch, suggesting other Anthropic teams or AI-native startups could follow. It does not report that they have done so, nor does it cite an announcement from Anthropic about a broader policy change. The confirmed development is therefore limited to Rieseberg’s team and his account of its interview practice.
How Engineering Teams Judge Candidates
The decision puts attention on a basic hiring question: whether an interview exercise measures the skills a team needs in the job. If a team finds that algorithm puzzles do not help distinguish candidates, continuing to rely on them may consume interview time without providing useful evidence. That could matter to applicants as well as employers, since coding interviews can shape who advances through a hiring process.
For readers, the key point is not that coding interviews are ending across the technology sector. Rather, one Anthropic team says its existing format was not useful, and has removed it. If other teams reach the same conclusion, they may reassess how they test practical engineering ability. The source does not say what alternatives this team uses, so it is too early to judge whether its new process is more predictive, faster, or fairer.
The report also lands amid wider discussion of how AI is changing software work and the skills employers value. But the source offers no evidence that AI tools caused the interview change. Rieseberg’s stated reason is the team’s assessment of the signal from DSA interviews, not a claim that candidates no longer need coding skills.
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A Team-Level Hiring Change
The development appears in The Pulse, The Pragmatic Engineer’s series on events and trends in Big Tech and startups. Its item on Anthropic centers on a statement by Felix Rieseberg, identified as a hiring manager who has led Claude Cowork and Claude Desktop. The source links to his blog post but the provided material does not reproduce a full account of the team’s hiring process.
The newsletter groups the item with separate reports on AI spending at incident.io, Amazon’s expectations for software engineers and managers, and Microsoft employee exit offers. Those are distinct developments, not evidence of a coordinated change in hiring. For this story, the relevant distinction is between one team’s decision and a company-wide Anthropic policy: the source supports the former, not the latter.
Scope and Replacement Methods
The scope of the change is not fully detailed. The report identifies Rieseberg’s team but does not specify which roles or hiring stages are affected, when the practice changed, or whether the team has formalized a new process. It also does not establish whether Anthropic’s other engineering groups still use coding questions.
There is no information in the supplied report about the interview methods now used, the criteria candidates are assessed against, or whether the team compared hiring results before and after the change. The claim that DSA interviews yielded no useful signal is attributed to the manager and should not be read as a finding that such interviews are ineffective for every employer. No broader company policy or industry-wide shift is confirmed.
Whether Anthropic Teams Follow
The next point to watch is whether Anthropic confirms a broader hiring change or other teams describe adopting a similar approach. The source does not announce a company policy, a timeline for review, or a planned evaluation of the team’s revised interviews.
For now, readers can treat this as a team-level hiring decision reported through Rieseberg’s account. Further detail from Anthropic or the team about replacement exercises and outcomes would clarify whether the change alters how candidates are assessed, rather than simply removing one interview format.
Key Questions
Did Anthropic end coding interviews across the company?
No company-wide change is confirmed. The report concerns Felix Rieseberg’s team and says that it stopped asking coding questions.
Why did the team stop asking coding questions?
Rieseberg said the team’s data-structures-and-algorithms interviews provided “zero signal”. The source does not provide a detailed methodology behind that assessment.
What will replace the coding questions?
The supplied report does not say. It provides no details about alternative exercises or how the team now evaluates candidates.
Does this mean coding skills are no longer required?
No. The report says the team removed a type of interview question; it does not say that coding skills are no longer needed for software engineering jobs.
Source: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com
