Google Is Testing a Transformative New Interview Rule
Key Takeaways
- Google is piloting a software engineering interview format that explicitly lets candidates use an AI assistant during the interview process.
- The pilot program starts with select junior and mid-level roles in the U.S., with the potential to expand later.
- Interviewers will explicitly evaluate “AI fluency,” including prompt engineering and debugging skills.
Applying to Google as a software engineer? Don’t leave your AI tools behind.
According to an internal document seen by Business Insider this week, Google is experimenting with a new recruiting process for software engineers that will allow them to tap into AI during the interview.
Beginning in the second half of this year, Google plans to allow candidates to use an AI assistant during its code comprehension interview. In that round, applicants will analyze an existing codebase — identifying bugs, improving performance and demonstrating how well they understand and refine real-world code.
“Interviewers will evaluate Al fluency, including prompt engineering, output validation, and debugging skills,” the document stated, per Business Insider.
Google will roll out the pilot to select U.S.-based teams hiring for early and mid-career roles, with plans to expand across more groups and regions if the approach proves effective.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the initiative, noting that candidates in the pilot will use the company’s Gemini AI as their assistant.
“We’re always evolving our interview processes to ensure we’re recruiting and hiring the best talent,” Brian Ong, vice president of recruiting at Google, told Business Insider. “As a part of that, we’re rolling out a pilot for software engineering interviews to be more reflective of how our teams are operating in the AI era.”
Other changes to Google’s interview process
The move to allow AI assistants in interviews falls within a larger effort to rethink hiring at Google, bringing interviews closer to today’s engineering practices. Google said last month that 75% of the company’s new code is AI-generated. Meanwhile, at other AI giants like OpenAI, AI is writing 80% of new code.
Google is also making other changes to its hiring process, per the internal document. The company is reworking its “Googleyness and Leadership” interview round, which has long centered on behavioral questions, to include a technical design conversation based on a candidate’s prior work. The round will go further than focusing on culture and soft skills to probe how candidates think through real engineering decisions.
For earlier-career applicants, Google is also replacing one traditional technical interview with a session built around solving open-ended engineering problems, per the document.
Other tech companies are allowing AI in interviews
Google isn’t the only company allowing AI use in interviews. Graphic design platform Canva told engineering candidates last year that it expects them to use tools like Copilot, Cursor and Claude during technical interviews to mirror how its own developers actually work.
Meanwhile, late last year, Meta started piloting a new interview type called AI-enabled coding, an interview in which candidates can access an AI assistant to help them write code.
Other large employers, including e-commerce software company Shopify and payroll and onboarding platform Rippling, now explicitly allow candidates to bring their preferred AI copilots into live coding sessions.
AI coding startup Cognition recently revamped its hiring process to fold AI into technical interviews. Emily Cohen, the company’s head of people and operations, told Business Insider that not allowing AI in interviews was similar to “asking a kid to take a math test without a calculator.”
“For the bulk of building something similar to what you would do on the role, you can and should use AI tools,” she told the outlet.
Key Takeaways
- Google is piloting a software engineering interview format that explicitly lets candidates use an AI assistant during the interview process.
- The pilot program starts with select junior and mid-level roles in the U.S., with the potential to expand later.
- Interviewers will explicitly evaluate “AI fluency,” including prompt engineering and debugging skills.
Applying to Google as a software engineer? Don’t leave your AI tools behind.
According to an internal document seen by Business Insider this week, Google is experimenting with a new recruiting process for software engineers that will allow them to tap into AI during the interview.
Beginning in the second half of this year, Google plans to allow candidates to use an AI assistant during its code comprehension interview. In that round, applicants will analyze an existing codebase — identifying bugs, improving performance and demonstrating how well they understand and refine real-world code.
Sherin Shibu
•
News Reporter
Entrepreneur Staff
Sherin Shibu