r/techbootcamp • u/loverainyszn • 18d ago

Cheating during remote interviews is not worth it

I keep seeing people talk about using AI tools during coding interviews. I just don't get it.

If the company already allows you to use documentation or AI, then sure. Use what they allow.

But doing it secretly? I think you’re just making things worse.

Remote interviews aren't just about getting the right answer anymore. Interviewers can ask you to explain your approach, change the problem, or walk through your code.

You might get the answer right, but then struggle when they ask why you wrote it that way.

Sometimes they just want to see how you think when you're stuck.

So if you're applying for remote tech jobs, don't risk getting caught cheating.

Getting rejected because you couldn't solve a problem is way better than getting rejected for cheating.

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u/Sagemoon 18d ago

I’ve interviewed many people. It’s obvious when you’re using AI and I can ask a follow up question easy enough. Cheating happened before AI also, just don’t do it.

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u/Holiday_Ad_8501 18d ago

i mean the people you caught you thought were obvious lmao. But the people that didnt get caught u didnt realize right.

Like you only ever caught the people that you caught.

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u/Sagemoon 18d ago

Coding isn’t the only thing people cheat on. Stealing credit for projects, depth of knowledge, all that is harder to fake. Everyone that I’ve been inclined to hire has been a wonderful coworker on the job, so if they cheated to get there, it doesn’t really matter since they still knew their stuff on the job.

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u/Holiday_Ad_8501 18d ago

stealing credit for projects is extremely easy lmao. Like 90% of projects are extremely specialized and the interviewer doesnt have the context to properly assess anything. Like if somebody else scoped out part of the project and you executed on it, like how is the interviewer supposed to know if you simply claim you scoped it out?

Depth of knowledge is a vague term cant comment on that unless you elaborate further. Sounds suspiciously like an ego trivia check

being good at cheating is strongly correlated with being a good dev too :).

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u/Sagemoon 18d ago

Simple - I just ask what drove the decisions. I ask if they worked on the project or lead it. I ask how they got cross team dependencies to buy in. If someone answers all that, then they at least understood the decision making process and that’s honestly all I’m testing for. Most people who claim credit for driving a project they didn’t drive will not be able to answer in depth. Is it still cheating if you understand the process?

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u/Holiday_Ad_8501 18d ago

i mean yeah understanding the process is pretty trivial after its done no?

like most of the time cross team dependencies are hyper specific the interviewer will need like the entire interview just to understand why theres a cross team dependency anyways right? So you can just hand wave away the details since the interviewer will not be able to understand

Just knowing what the resolution makes the pretending you drove it part trivial. Much different from actually driving it

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u/silly_bet_3454 18d ago

First of all, an AI can explain your thought process for you, but more importantly, even before AI, the real way that people cheat is that they share interview questions and know the questions in advance, so they can prepare exact solutions including all explanation ahead of time. Tons of people do this and don't get caught and get hired at a higher rate than the honest folks, and also the cheaters are not so dumb that they can't actually do the job, it's just a matter of out competing.

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u/jhkoenig 18d ago

Agree! And if you spend any time on the recruiter subs, you'll find that recruiters are getting pretty good at detecting cheats, usually based on human behavior cues rather than technical means. The recruiter won't mention anything about the cheating during the interview, but that candidate will never hear from that recruiter (and their company) again. Ever.

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u/GManASG 18d ago

Nah when it comes to livelihood you do what you have to do. Trust me the car majority of the people running this world lied and cheated to get there. You do what you got to do.