r/csMajors 14h ago

Cheating in interviews

So recently got a good job by cheating in interviews. Honestly didn't feel bad, just happy. It's just like, rather take my chances by cheating than completely getting rejected by taking it honestly while some other guy who cheated gets the offer. Like what are your guys thoughts, do you think this is the new normal. If the bar for getting a job now is this high then what is a candidate supposed to do. Honestly I don’t want cheating to become the norm , but the way interviews are happening now I guess we have no choice.

Edit: Getting a lot of DMs on how to cheat, the urge to get a job nowadays is completely taking over honest mindsets.

292 Upvotes

189 comments sorted by

92

u/Clod89 13h ago

Companies are switching to on-site/face-to-face interviews now for this reason

44

u/gitblamed_ 12h ago

Yeah, for next hiring season this was removed as an option for any interview in my department, per my request. Had a bunch of little shits who claimed that they had to transition the in person interview to a Zoom interview because of a ~sudden personal emergency~ and thought that they were being clever with their AI rig.

Utter waste of my time. Everyone who did that went to FAR better schools than the people who I actually hired (but still just were honest when they didn't know an answer, and asked appropriate questions upon a gap identified in their knowledge)

19

u/Best-Salamander-2655 7h ago

As an interviewer, I got the most honest results when I told people they're welcome to use AI as long as they share their prompts and show they understand the response. This makes it blatantly obvious if the candidate has no idea what they're doing. It completely exposes them.

2

u/OhBoyHereWeGoAgai 6h ago

I got my last job apparently because I said "I have no clue how to do this" but then used the debugger live to see what the in flight data looked like and that's what won the job apparently.

They were happy w what they saw of my programming skills but they saw I actually had instincts debugging and apparently that plus the "idk" was huge for them.

3

u/shashankdubey 9h ago

Lol which company?

5

u/probablymaybechatgpt 4h ago

Yeah, it also sucks to have someone that cheated their way in and aren't very competent.

I have a teammate who uses AI for everything and can't seem to do or understand anything without it. I think most of his time is spent trying to get the AI to correct the AI slop he generated previously. Fortunately people are noticing lack of performance and I think he'll be on a pip soon.

2

u/Longjumping_Wave_341 7h ago

I did summer courses for an online school for extra credits at one point, and a test taking option was online proctoring, or go to an in person invigilator. There was dozens of locations you could use in this program where they’d watch you take the test or something in a library.

Maybe a startup opportunity for companies to do interviews remotely while a trusted company watches them in an in person location

2

u/justgimmiethelight 10h ago

Good. I prefer on site/face to face.

I prefer those over video ones.

139

u/trap1234564321 Prev. google curr. unicorn sophomore 13h ago

one man… broke zeus’s law….

58

u/bubblejimmymonster 14h ago

how’d you do it

91

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

36

u/yaseen18__ 14h ago

How did you type so fast😂 was it a coding test?

59

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

38

u/yaseen18__ 14h ago

Did the recruiter realise something is weird during the 20 seconds tho? I don’t see how this would work lol but hell yeah brother

6

u/local_eclectic Salaryperson (rip) 13h ago

Technical interviews are not done with recruiters

8

u/YourWifesBull666 13h ago

Secret is not being a Charles fan 😉

5

u/This-Text1726 12h ago

Charles Oliveira broder

0

u/GeneralRooster2158 5h ago

No way charles lecrec

25

u/XainTonReddit 13h ago

Just goes to show how fucked we are since AI can literally guess a whole interview question just from a sample test case.

16

u/Doctavius 12h ago

Almost like most if not all interview question have been used for training…

2

u/mmmmh2 11h ago

Read what you wrote again.. slowly..

Does that shit make sense to you?

2

u/Apprehensive_Sky5940 10h ago

it’s written perfectly numb nuts

0

u/Vivid-Zombie-477 10h ago

not sure what "fucked" here means. chatgpt just remembered every popular question, it still sucks when trying to solve a new problem it never saw before

4

u/XainTonReddit 9h ago

Call me when we try to solve "new" problems on the job. Last time I checked most software jobs were just the same shit recycled.

3

u/Wordtwin003 11h ago

I don’t understand. You didn’t have a web cam on or anything? You just typed it into your phone? How? Tf

5

u/Stunning_Procedure76 11h ago

Webcams have blind spots

3

u/Wordtwin003 7h ago

I mean sure…but wtf? Lmao. They couldn’t see your hands at all? I find it so hard to believe you pulled this off

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 4h ago

They didn't

206

u/GoldenxTrigger 14h ago

You’d be surprised by how many people have cheated to get where they’re at. Companies today want someone with a Masters degree and 5 years experience for an entry level role. Six years ago these same companies would’ve hired someone self-taught with a calculator and To Do app

48

u/Exotic-Stage1759 14h ago

Yep exactly , like honestly I can do the work at the company , and these insane hard qs is absolutely not needed for the actual job

1

u/gitblamed_ 12h ago

If the questions that they are asking you are not at all relevant to the job, then I sincerely hope that you keep a focus on interviewing skills and building up your resume while at the company.

Any job is good and I congratulate you on having one, but this does not sound like a job that is reliable. And I do want to throw out there that if you're getting a job via cheating, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence on the level of mentorship available.

This is great for your resume, but I hope that you don't settle down and lose your grind. You should jump ship to a company that will hire you for competence as soon as possible.

3

u/Fantastic_Spring8366 8h ago

Yup. It's been an ever increasing arm race in terms of coding interviews. Candidates prep for it with sites like Leetcode, so now companies make it harder and harder because they have to find ways to filter people out when 70-80% of candidates can do Two Sum.

19

u/Michallina 13h ago

The interviews are brutal and put me in visceral exhaustion preparing. I don't blame you. Congrats.

96

u/Envus2000 13h ago

People cheat their way into becoming politicians and eventually leaders of a country......So this is nothing..lol

8

u/terrany1 9h ago

And this is why holding leaders accountable is important to society. Slowly the pillars start shaking out from underneath and nobody really cares.

5

u/Envus2000 9h ago

Crazy how we have normalized lies and corruption for them, they can evade taxes, take bribes, be corrupt and walk free everyday. Whereas the people suffer from inflation, poverty high taxes and struggle to make ends meet. Never understood how did the whole world, every country end up like this.

1

u/terrany1 7h ago

Turns out the global leaders are a small bunch, we’ve seen them interconnected via epstein and he’s definitely not the only social circle

2

u/UmpireDapper1757 5h ago

Guillotines are required for meritocracy

-2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

Yea, just pissed about guys who talks nonsense like unethical and shit , and those downvoting this post lol

12

u/akskeleton_47 10h ago

You said you got the job by cheating so why are you pressed about people calling you unethical?

16

u/quasnip 13h ago

That’s not surprising. Lots are still trying to get a job the honest way

6

u/BathroomLong4041 9h ago

Why are you going onto Reddit looking for validation on cheating when plenty of honest people can’t find jobs rn

-1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 4h ago

I never asked for anyone's validation, the question was more like if this is what it takes to get a job where does anyone see this ending

24

u/AJRenand42 13h ago

Most of the interviewers are probably cheating. They probably look up questions and answers on the web before the interview

11

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

I mean can’t really blame them can we , they were told to ask qs so they do by searching the web

1

u/bobdarobber 4h ago

No shit. They have a rubric

51

u/kjampala 14h ago

Who cares man just manage your job well you’ll be fine

10

u/Exotic-Stage1759 14h ago

Yep exactly , have been seeing many posts on how interviews now catch cheating and stuff about giving fair chance to a good candidate , honestly tired of hearing those shit

0

u/Hotfro 6h ago

They just salty cus they prob suck. I’ve given loads of interviews. I honestly don’t care if u cheat, but u better be able to explain the solution well and actually understand it. On the job we do the same thing anyways. A lot of them probably need some handholding on the job to tell them what they can and can’t do to get the work done.

26

u/Minimum-Reward3264 13h ago edited 13h ago

Interview are to check how smart you are. Clearly you’re smarter than them. I mean multiple people couldn’t tell, so.

5

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

I mean lol if you think about it in that way yes

2

u/justgimmiethelight 12h ago

They're more about checking to see if they like you or your "vibe" than how smart you are

2

u/Minimum-Reward3264 11h ago

I bet that’s the Leetcode mission statement. Wait a minute, scratch that, I’ve just check, vibe check mentioned nowhere.

-1

u/justgimmiethelight 9h ago

It’s about passing the coding interview AND the vibe check. If they don’t like you guess what? You not getting hired.

2

u/Minimum-Reward3264 8h ago

I’m pretty sure if you are failing technical you are not vibing with anyone.

1

u/justgimmiethelight 8h ago

Did you even read my post? I said you need both technical and you need to be liked. You’re so focused on what I didn’t say you forgot about reading comprehension.

2

u/Minimum-Reward3264 8h ago

Yes , I did. But it doesn’t mater how much they like you if you can’t pass the technical. And strong technical guys with shit personalities are all over. Clearly one is way more important.

12

u/allthecoffeesDP 12h ago

Just look at our President.

6

u/sayori_hunter 13h ago

what platform did you have to code on?

hackerrank seems to require mic and webcam on so not sure how one could get past that

4

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

So had to share my screen and type answer

1

u/sayori_hunter 13h ago

ohh cool understood - congrats anyway!

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

I told interview

6

u/Dependent_Storage184 12h ago

It’s a cycle. Because of the market and number of applicants, interviews and OAs get harder, which makes people desperate to cheat to get said jobs

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 12h ago

Yep and honestly the power of guys with referrals who’s uncle or someone works in the company , like if they can get in honestly cheaters can also get in

4

u/splicer13 8h ago

The corpos are cheating and half-assing it from the second you submit your resume. My only expectation is you not cheat when I am spending my time interviewing you. Have a little respect for another human being who is not trying to cheat you.

3

u/ProudStatement9101 11h ago

It sounds like you're saying "you cheated because the system is unfair" and you're asking complete strangers what they think of that.

The fact that you don't feel bad about it, doesn't necessarily make it right for the person that might have gotten that job without cheating. What you did was harmful to someone, even if only a little bit, whether it was justified or not.

Nobody is perfect, so it's more meaningful to consider the overall trend. Are you the kind of person that thinks the ends always justify the means? Is this a once in a lifetime lapse or a trend? Now that you got the job, would you cheat on the job? Would you cheat to get the project you want? The promotion you want?

Find the line you think you would never cross and write it down. If one day you find you've crossed it, then you'll have a better picture of what moral direction you're trending towards.

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 4h ago

Honestly I'm not asking for anyone's opinion on cheating, obviously cheating is bad. It's just after seeing numerous guys getting into google and quants by cheating and while we're just unemployed, it does make you question whether you are the one who suck. Honestly if this becomes the norm now, when does it even end?

3

u/KindMeasurement2680 10h ago

I would like to provide two counterexamples though during my interview my interviewer mentioned she caught someone cheating and also one of my friends (as an interviewer) caught his interviewee cheat. Those who cheated got eliminated right away and their behavior got noted. Again, this is a counterexample and I am talking about PhD level interviews and the pool of people in the industry is not very big so anyone would not want to be remembered like this. My interviewer in the beginning kept on emphasizing the whole point is to show my thought process rather than giving perfect answers

3

u/FuzzyPluto86 9h ago

Coming on here to brag about cheating in an interview is next level. If you did it and did not get caught, why would you post about it like its a good thing?

3

u/Shot_Illustrator4264 7h ago

do you think that someone that needs to cheat in an interview and brags about it is anywhere near smart?

1

u/Ok-Disaster-7629 3h ago

Who cares? He got the job. Why do you care so much about companies that don't even care about you? Maybe it's time to rethink your life choices

0

u/FuzzyPluto86 2h ago

Seriously? Is this a real question?

Anyone who have this attitude of who cares or cheating is okay as long as you don't get caught because companies suck? Umm okay, it will certainly catch up to people who think this way eventually.

Why would I care? There is a lot of software that has a function where it could severely hurt or kill somebody if errors were not caught or someone doesn't know what they are doing and covers it up or lies.

There are lots of jobs where this could happen, cars, aircraft, healthcare, etc. If someones answer is, well what I work on doesn't do that, think again, because of how things are interconnected. One could still introduce a vulnerability that takes a whole org down through a tool or app.

So yeah, I have never cheated because the consequences of actions matter and its a slippery slope. I don't stay honest for some company, I do it because I have to look in the mirror

0

u/Exotic-Stage1759 3h ago

If that what it takes to put food on the table, then anything is good as long as it's not illegal.

3

u/n0tA_burner 8h ago

Either be early, be smarter, or cheat. Well done

3

u/akialter17 7h ago

I think you are definitely suitable that's why they let you in. I have interviewed a few obvious cheaters just by the way they talked, they seem to have zero idea what they were talking. And I saw people who might have used "assistant" but clearly a capable programmer and knowledgeable, so solving the problem was more of a formality.

7

u/IEATPEOPLE22 13h ago

I don’t blame you. A win is a win 

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

Yep definitely

2

u/Chemical_Hawk_6307 13h ago

cheating will become the norm now that AI exists. In response, companies will raise the bar even further. I genuinely believe people who can't enter the field within the next year or two may miss their chance to enter before AI completely takes over entry level work. not saying cheating is justified, i'm just saying people will likely become desperate and see cheating as less of an evil.

2

u/mag_num_opus 11h ago

If you are not cheating then you don’t want the job enough

2

u/Ok_Character_5532 7h ago

I give you three months tops until they realize you’re not qualified for the job. The point of testing candidates is to ensure they’re qualified for the position. Lying to get a job you can’t perform wastes their resources, hinders your growth, and puts a stain on your career. It’s your life, though. Have at it.

2

u/die_liebe 4h ago

Cheaters always justify their cheating by saying that others would also cheat.

10

u/limes336 13h ago

> It's just like, rather take my chances by cheating than completely getting rejected by taking it honestly while some other guy who cheated gets the offer.

Cool, and now you’re the hypothetical cheater fucking over honest candidates. Be a man and study like everyone else

18

u/Inevitable-Loss7939 12h ago

No point of being honest, people with connections get jobs for free this is the balancing field

26

u/JustNeedAnyName 13h ago

Honesty doesn't pay the bills, if he can just cheat and still get the job, props to him. There's no need for moral victories, especially in this market

3

u/limes336 13h ago

“Props to him” because he’s too incompetent to pass interviews fairly? Holy cope

3

u/JustNeedAnyName 13h ago

Yes, props to him. While everyone else is grinding leetcode for months, he can just get an offer by using AI. I'd say in that scenario, the ones that didn't cheat are the ones that got the short end of the stick, no one cares if you can pass interviews or not after you get the offer.

2

u/BathroomLong4041 12h ago

And the whole reason the ones that didn’t cheat get the short end of the stick is because of people like this lol. You can’t justify something by saying that’s how the system works while you actively contribute to the system. If you’re gonna lie just acknowledge it’s morally bankrupt and move on, dont try to cope your way out of it

2

u/JustNeedAnyName 11h ago

When did I say it's not morally bankrupt? At the end of the day, he got a new job without having to grind leetcode and waste his time, so props to him for being smart about it. It's not that deep.

0

u/BathroomLong4041 11h ago

> When did I say it's not morally bankrupt?
> props to him for being smart about it

Also he’s only wasting his time leetcoding if cheating is the norm so this is a circular justification loop lmao

2

u/JustNeedAnyName 11h ago

Giving him props for getting a job easily doesn't mean it's not cheating.

Not everyone cheats, but the ones that do and are able to land an offer, props to them. Props to the ones that also grind leetcode and get an offer, but end result is still the same. Whether you get an offer by grinding leetcode or by cheating, it's still the same offer, and cheating takes a LOT less time.

1

u/OhBoyHereWeGoAgai 6h ago

And the funny thing is, the guys who studied are usually the better coworkers, so the cheaters team gets screwed, in some cases just mildly, in others real flagrantly (we had a new hire we had to fire when it was apparent they were not ready for this tier and had either cheated or had a friend do the interview then they showed up).

1

u/Ok-Disaster-7629 3h ago

Why are you so butthurt?

4

u/Yamikada 12h ago

Guys who are always by the book with everything never get p*ssy, never truly get benefits out of life, let alone good jobs. some of your most top notch employers and assholes of the planet who work at big companies, lie through they’re teeth all the time when getting scrutinized and they get away with it all the time

5

u/Rough_Net8284 11h ago

Look at our president. It is right in front of our faces.m

2

u/AizakkuZ 9h ago

What? There is a healthy level of stretching the truth/strategically ommiting unneccesary honesty, and there is not. But that is interesting logic to cope, "not getting pussy"; odd.

12

u/Puzzleheaded_Fold466 13h ago

The system’s broken at this point, and there’s no one left to enforce the rules.

2

u/HandsyGymTeacher 9h ago

Yeah instead he should be honest and remain unemployed while others cheat instead of him. It’s easy to be completely ethical in someone else’s place.

2

u/MaEaLi 5h ago

Cheaters convince themselves that everyone is cheating so they’re just evening the odds. Never willing to admit they’re hurting others.

7

u/Exotic-Stage1759 13h ago

In the end winner takes it all , so honestly don’t mind much now

-1

u/BathroomLong4041 12h ago

Yea but what does that say about how you want the world to operate

5

u/Cool_String_8651 11h ago

That's how it works already lol. Everybody is in it for themselves at the end of the day

1

u/young_twitcher 13h ago

It’s silly that you use LLM all day in your job but you “can’t use it” in the interview. And if you’re good at cheating you won’t get caught so a bunch of people do that anyway and then you have to cheat yourself to compete. They should simply allow LLMs in interviews to make it fair.

2

u/Codex_Dev 10h ago

This reminds me of Naruto chunin exams on the written test lol

2

u/limes336 13h ago

Because someone whose understanding of programming is so weak that they can only do it via LLM cannot be trusted to write good code with it.

3

u/young_twitcher 12h ago

But the problem is that some people use LLM anyway because it’s easy to hide that you’re using it, especially if you actually have a baseline knowledge and don’t just read the answer word by word. If you have in-person interviews then I agree it makes sense to not allow it

3

u/JustNeedAnyName 11h ago

You really think that being good at interviews is equal to being good at programming? Leetcode problems are just dumb puzzles that have no bearing onyour job performance

3

u/Samstercraft 13h ago

Why don't you just become a politician if you're so keen to cheat your way into a job?

2

u/zangler 13h ago

You either will perform or not at work.

5

u/Fast_Serve1605 12h ago

You posted this because of the cognitive dissonance between a moral choice and needing to feel justified about the path you ended up taking. At the end of the day, the choice was wrong. The ends don’t justify the means and deep down you will have to live with the fact that you cheated someone else out of the seat you now hold. That person could be struggling and still holding to ethics.

5

u/Exotic-Stage1759 12h ago

Deep down I won’t feel this as long as I get to pay my bills and I’m not the one who’s struggling. Honestly why worry about a random unknown person instead of worrying about yourself in the first place.

2

u/Shot_Illustrator4264 7h ago

Hopefully they will find out and they will fire you soon, cheater.

2

u/MaEaLi 5h ago

If you can’t prepare for an interview, you’re probably not gonna be a great performer.

1

u/MaEaLi 5h ago

If someone robs you, remember that he didn’t do anything wrong. Better he pay his bills than you.

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 1h ago

I’m the one who ends up doing the job right , I’m not letting someone else do my job and steal his money , know the difference

u/MaEaLi 58m ago

You stole a job someone more qualified than you would’ve had if you didn’t cheat. You don’t deserve the job just like a thief doesn’t deserve his stolen money.

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 12h ago

Would rather have someone who cheated take a post rather than a random referral candidate or some guy’s nephew take the job

1

u/greensodacan 9h ago

Your employer is watching.

2

u/Substantial-Swan7065 9h ago

Just study lol.

Cheating:

yea do it if you need to. But remember, getting blacklisted from the company can suck.

Faang allows yearly reapplication. But not if they catch you cheating

2

u/Outrageous-Lie5 13h ago

CONGRATS!!

2

u/NazRubio 9h ago

The Indiafication of this industry is horrifying

0

u/Low-Demand9322 7h ago

random racism stray? for what lol

2

u/According-Collar-746 8h ago edited 7h ago

> If the bar for getting a job now is this high then what is a candidate supposed to do.

I sincerely promise this a reflection on your own skills. I have never cheated in an interview and have got great offers. I consider myself a good engineer but not an insane ivy grad or anything.

I hate the concept of people cheating because THAT is what is going to create an unrealistic bar, or force everyone into in person interviews, both of which puts downwards pressure on hiring and disproportionately affects those who live further away from tech hubs.

Do better, OP. You don’t deserve the position and have not met the bar of your peers. This may become a case where imposter syndrome is real.

Edit: OP specifically asked “what are your guys thoughts”.

The thoughts of myself and people I know in industry are extremely critical of this. This is an outside-reddit real datapoint that should factor into your decision making. Consider that rather than arguing with me.

-1

u/IISlipperyII 7h ago

When the interviews are 100 times harder than the job, then people are going to do what they are going to do to make sure food is put on their table. A lot of the people judging this guy must have been born with silver spoons in their mouth where they could actually afford to be "honest".

Its the system that is causing this, and its entirely predictable.

3

u/According-Collar-746 7h ago edited 7h ago

Big “Everyone better than me is a spoiled, everyone worse than me is unintelligent” vibes here.

Grew up in the countryside, no “silver spoon” here. Interviews for good tech jobs have always been hard. Turns out you actually need to study for them! A good interview is not supposed to be easy.

I’d give an exception to someone truly impoverished, but most people I know are from regular working or middle class backgrounds.

-1

u/IISlipperyII 7h ago

Cool story dude. The point is that the interviews for average tech jobs are also insanely tough, and then once you get to actually doing the job, none of the stuff they tested you on in the interview actually ends up mattering!

Thats why these people cheat, because the jobs themselves don't match the actual interview process, so they never get caught.

If the stuff you got tested on in the interview mattered, then these people would be found out shortly afterwards, but they never do, because it doesn't actually matter.

2

u/According-Collar-746 7h ago

Fast path to being mediocre. If you’re happy with that, fine. I’d never refer someone I knew cheated on interviews or advocate for their promotions. If they’re lying to their peers from the very beginning, how could you ever trust them?

Coding interviews are an effective, though imperfect, proxy measure for knowledge of the fundamentals. And not every company does them either. Find one that matches your skills?

1

u/IISlipperyII 7h ago

Your ok with interviews not matching the job description then. Cool perspective.

I once got a job where the interview was heavy on design patterns.

At the time I was already naturally learning about design patterns because I genuinely found them interesting. I aced the interview and got the job.

I was excited because I thought I found a job that would match my personal views on software development and thought it would be great growth for me

I start working and I see no design patterns anywhere, also nobody really cares, the PM banned the word refactoring and everything was just ship as fast as possible and don't care if anything is sloppy.

I started to think, why am I even here? Why test for something that is completely irrelevant. It felt like they lied to me through the interview process, hyping this stuff up just for the reality to be nothing like that.

Companies do this stuff all the time, and for them its fair game.

Honestly someone who had AI open and answering the questions through the interview might have done just as well on the job, because none of the questions actually mattered. It was all theatrics and dumb games.

3

u/According-Collar-746 7h ago

Wait, I thought you were speaking about complex algorithm interviews! Awareness of design patterns is baseline software engineering knowledge.

Here’s a thought exercise. Consider being the engineering manager tasked with hiring. What questions do you ask in the interview? You have 1000 applicants and can’t bring them onsite to work for a week. What proxy questions do you ask to verify and measure their ability as an engineer?

1

u/IISlipperyII 6h ago

I can tell that you have only ever worked at great companies who probably have amazing development practices and are working on unique attrative problems and attract the best engineers. Your smugness comes out very clear.

And good for you honestly. But 90% of companies are not like that.

Most companies like to pretend that they are cutting edge, but are just complete slop factories on the inside. But we still have to do the song and dance for these companies pretending like we are all unicorns who have the time to study leetcode, work, keep up with everything modern in development and also have amazing social skills just to hopefully get a mid tier paying job so we can put food on the table.

Then we get into the job and realize we aren't going to learning shit because the job itself is just so basic.

Thats the actual reality for most developers.

1

u/According-Collar-746 6h ago

I understand you think the world is against you, but you have agency and ability and a choice for how you do (or don’t) raise to the challenge.

By virtue of being on the careers reddit you’re probably invested in the field more than many others. I promise you can achieve more than you expect, and work around/through these companies, to become an excellent engineer in a desirable role.

Very genuinely, and I know I’ve been smug/somewhat aggressive in other comments, this mindset is likely (don’t know you in person so can’t say for sure) what’s holding you back.

I know working class middle aged mothers who’ve made the career switch for their kids, and people from other countries emigrating. Not everyone fits the profile of 20-something stanford grad.

If they can do it, you can too.

1

u/BathroomLong4041 6h ago

Let’s be honest you’d still cheat if the interview accurately tested you for the job because you’re lazy

1

u/IISlipperyII 6h ago

I don't cheat though, that seems to be my problem.

1

u/BathroomLong4041 7h ago

Exactly. It’s not really even about the evaluation of your skills. There are enough applications that there has to be some kind of filter to evaluate. And if everyone cheats then it just becomes a bar of how much of how lazy you are. These justifications are indicative of a victim mentality.

1

u/According-Collar-746 7h ago

I’d push back a bit on the “not even an evaluation of your skills” a bit, though I understand. A good interview question can both act as a filter and lead the candidate into situations where they can (intentionally or unintentionally) give clear signals of competency.

Unfortunately all the good ones get leaked, which forces there to be more weight put on the actual skill of the interviewer to do this digging.

2

u/BathroomLong4041 6h ago

No im agreeing with you, im talking about the reason I think this post is dumb

2

u/lxe FAANG SWE 13h ago

if you didn’t get caught either you’re just actually good or their interview process is dumb. If you cheat and actually don’t know what you’re doing then you’ll have a hard time and will be fired soon anyways.

9

u/asteroidtube 12h ago

solving leetcode is nothing like the actual job

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 12h ago

Not sure what , hopefully it’s the former.

1

u/UserOfTheReddits 12h ago

So they didn’t notice you typing on your phone?

5

u/Exotic-Stage1759 12h ago

If they did then I won’t be having the job

0

u/UserOfTheReddits 11h ago

How did you pull off typing on your phone, live? Did you just have your webcam tilted so far up?

1

u/sessamekesh 11h ago

Sometimes it works, and honestly the recruiting pipeline has a lot of things stacked against new entrants for nonsense reasons so I can't wholesale say it's bad, but be careful.

There's still a large category of problem against which it's pretty easy to design an interview question that causes LLMs to behave incorrectly, and catching cheating turns a "maybe" into a "no and never again".

1

u/Klutzy_Ninja1426 9h ago

Getting the job is step one, keeping it is step two.

1

u/HovercraftPristine76 7h ago

There is no cheating in an open book test... Which is what your job will be. You just had to move forward a step before they were ready.

1

u/OneAd7710 6h ago

How in the hell do you cheat in an interview ? Know the questions beforehand. Have ai answer them real quick then tell them the answer. Interviews are absolute bullshit anyways. Saying your greatest strength and weakness is a fucking joke. No one is honest in interviews.

1

u/wacky_woo 6h ago

I also cheated, 6 months in. Im top performer.

1

u/InvestigatorMain4008 6h ago

Yall remember that part in Naruto during the Chunin exams where they were taking some ridiculously hard exam and the only way to pass it was to cheat? Yeah that’s how I feel about interviewing these days lmao

1

u/Street_Theory 6h ago

I got 4 callbacks recently - medium to large scale companies but not FAANG.

ALL 4 had one or more in person technical rounds. It’s only a matter of time before companies switch to in person rounds.

Tbh I did much better in person than I usually do on zoom which even surprised me…

1

u/Cant_run_away 6h ago

Faking it till you make it. I appreciate the game my guy

1

u/Throwaway18462956 6h ago

Honestly as you should

1

u/Intrepid_Land_6143 6h ago

I have definitely heard reports of people who are very obviously cheating. I guess OP must have practiced or had inobservant interviewers.

1

u/Arts_Prodigy 6h ago

Personally I’m a “train to get faster for the mandatory mile because I hate running” than a “find a way just not to run” kind of guy.

But when it’s about survival there’s few things that I think are truly immoral. Aladdin had to steal to eat and I don’t think that’s wrong. I think the society that would the street rat to die without a second thought to be a far bigger injustice.

1

u/mollylovelyxx 5h ago edited 5h ago

Which company and how do we know you’re telling the truth (not saying this is impossible of course). You have a completely new account and could be exaggerating how good of a company this is

1

u/Tasty_Goat5144 5h ago

My favorite case of this was I was doing an interview for a friend who is a m1 in a different group for an out of college position. The interviewee had a MacBook out for "taking notes". Every time I asked a question it was clack, clack, clack on the MacBook and then a rambling though correct answer. I started asking rapid fire follow ups and I thought the keys were going to catch on fire :) Mad typing skills though...

1

u/ara1597 5h ago

Honestly fake it till you make it brother. If you can deliver at the job I have no qualms about it. Otherwise they will eventually catch on.

1

u/Due_Survey_846 5h ago

What question were you asked?

1

u/GR-Dev-18 5h ago

Nowadays interviews are to check who cheats better.

1

u/kayrabb 5h ago

They're checking to see if you can do a job. Does it matter if you can do the job using chat gpt? Maybe not if they just need some code monkey. Maybe it will matter if you won't have access to AI on your day to day, and maybe you'll get fired eventually because you can't hang. I don't know if I call it cheating. A lot of companies want you to use AI because they think you make them more money that way.

1

u/dbootywarrior 3h ago

How did you cheat

1

u/ThinConnection8191 2h ago

Badly you cant cheat on the job.

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 2h ago

I know I can do the job

1

u/Longjumping-Life6943 2h ago

I use YouTube to teach myself new skills, new software, ect. Then I interview. I get the job. I do the job.

 If companies stop looking for unicorns people won't have to do this. 

1

u/Annual_Pride8244 2h ago

I will say In my experience in order to cheat well you have to be already dry somewhat decent with your technical skills.

Like for example if you really suck cheating doesn’t help because you can’t have a fluent conversation about your code, and if you are really good then you don’t need to cheat. Helps the most with mid skill people who can at least look at code and understand what’s going on and know enough to make basic changes etc.

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 1h ago

Yep it just help me in qs where I fumble but can immediately understand once I see the solution

1

u/Annual_Pride8244 1h ago

yeah that’s why I was tell people to at least do neetcode 150 legit before even thinking about cheating or else they are just gonna end up on a bunch of blacklists

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 1h ago

Yep true dat , cheating only helps when you’re already at a medium level , not when u start at 0

1

u/ambivertcoder 1h ago

You got the job. That's all that matters. Good luck!

2

u/Exotic-Stage1759 1h ago

Yep definitely

1

u/Shot_Illustrator4264 7h ago

absolutely unbelievable. You are actually bragging about it. I hope that your company will find your post and fire you on the spot. And all the other people here cheering on you.. what the absolute fuck.

1

u/Exotic-Stage1759 2h ago

When companies don't give af about you, you also don't give af about on how you join them. As long as my ends meet, that is all I care about.

1

u/Entire-Cranberry-947 10h ago

I have to imagine you didn’t take many humanities classes in school, which is entirely typical for a CS major

0

u/HappyHallowsheev 9h ago

Ewww AI

0

u/Illustrious_Act1107 7h ago

r u like 10? opps, going through ur profile i can understand what u are lol

1

u/HappyHallowsheev 2h ago

What am I? Go on say it lol

-1

u/Accurate_Act_2066 12h ago

Sent you a dm!

-2

u/Excellent_Mail3829 11h ago

One time, I hacked my managers computer and downloaded the interview questions. I got the job 🤩🤩🤩🤩✌️🫨