When a founder from a non-tech company told me that he personally spent over 2000 dollar in last month in coding (He never coded before) with proud, I'm asking him why using API instead of subscription, he told that, "the model is different, I spend more, it's a better and smarter model without limitation".
I thought they just want to show up to others(especially non tech guys) that they spent high, so they know more about AI
In past decades the "firewall" of software is that advanced security and coding knowledge is not very easy to access by anyone, only a few smartest people in the big name companies and top orgs.
But nowadays, knowledge is accessible to everyone if you use top LLM, which swipe the difference. I would say that future public software is unsafe anymore. maybe the concept of public software (like SaaS or other) will be dead, software is only private instead of public
Actually not a real technical interview for this case, it's a real world problem solving, including business analysis(for the uncleared problem), coding, and testing to deliver to me. What I'm looking for a individual builder(or a one-person tech team) instead of an expert on a specific tech stack.
As a tech lead, from last year, all my new hire interview is fundamentally changed, no concept, no algo, no design.
Just a real world problem, even not clearly defined yet, allow candidate use any AI tool they like, ask me questions or do research for problem clarification, and work it out.
I'm watching all this process in 1-1.5 hours to see if he is a problem solver. 99% will be solved by AI with your proactivaly and smart prompt or questions in current work, so the thinking and prompting process is key.
"We laid off engineers to hire engineers with stronger AI skills" is what 2026 sounds like when a company means "we laid off engineers to pay less." The AI wrapper doesn't change the trade, it just makes the wage cut quotable in the press release.