How AI changes what matters in SWE interviews

AI tools can now generate boilerplate code, suggest implementations, and accelerate everyday development tasks. That doesn’t mean engineering skill matters less. If anything, the opposite is happening.

As AI takes on more of the execution work, companies are putting more weight on the skills that guide, critique, and shape that work.

Four traits are becoming increasingly important signals in interviews.

1. Agency

AI tools can help write code, and you may face an AI-assisted interview. But AI tools can’t decide what problems are worth solving.

Engineers with strong agency don’t wait for perfectly defined tickets. They identify gaps, propose improvements, and move work forward even when the path isn’t obvious.

In interviews, this shows up in subtle ways. Strong candidates clarify the problem before jumping into implementation. They ask questions that reshape the approach. They notice edge cases or missing requirements and bring them up early.

Instead of treating the prompt as a fixed puzzle, they treat it as a problem to explore and understand.

That kind of initiative matters more in an AI-shaped environment, where the bottleneck is no longer typing speed but deciding what should happen next.

2. Learning mindset

AI tools, frameworks, and development workflows are evolving quickly. Companies know the landscape will look different again in a year.

Because of that, interviewers are paying closer attention to how candidates learn.

They want to see engineers who experiment with new tools, adapt their workflows, and stay curious about how the craft is changing.

This often comes through in behavioral interviews. Candidates who talk about trying new tools, exploring unfamiliar technologies, or adjusting their development habits signal that they’ll continue evolving alongside the industry.

A rigid approach to problem-solving is much harder to sustain when the tools themselves are changing this quickly.

3. Cross-functional impact

Modern software development rarely happens in isolation.

Even individual contributors spend a significant portion of their time working with product managers, designers, data teams, infrastructure teams, and security teams.

As engineering work speeds up with AI, the coordination across those groups becomes even more important.

Interviewers increasingly look for candidates who can navigate that complexity.

That means understanding product goals, communicating clearly with non-engineers, and balancing tradeoffs between speed, reliability, and user experience.

In interviews, this signal often appears in system design discussions or questions about past projects. Strong candidates talk not just about the code they wrote, but about the decisions they made with teammates and the constraints they had to manage.

4. Technical judgment

AI can generate code quickly. What it cannot reliably do (yet) is determine whether that code is the right solution.

That responsibility still belongs to the engineer.

Strong engineers think about edge cases. They question whether an implementation will scale. They recognize when a design choice could introduce subtle bugs or long-term maintenance issues.

In interviews, this often appears when candidates pause to evaluate their own solution, suggest improvements, or explain why one approach might be safer or more maintainable than another.

The ability to critique a solution is becoming just as important as the ability to produce one.

The real shift

AI hasn’t removed the need for strong software engineers. If anything, it’s raising the bar for what good engineering looks like.

Companies still care about fundamentals like algorithms, data structures, and system design. But they’re also paying closer attention to initiative, adaptability, collaboration, and judgment.

The candidates who stand out in interviews today are the ones who can guide the work, question assumptions, and make sound technical decisions as the pace of development continues to accelerate.

Get ready with Formation

Formation helps experienced engineers land top-tier roles. 

Our live, interactive workshops are led by mentors who’ve hired, coached, and interviewed at the highest levels, and give you space to practice in real time. You’ll be able to ask questions, pressure-test your answers, and see how interviews actually work today. 

If you want hands-on preparation that builds clarity, adaptability, and confidence over time, explore our upcoming workshops to see what’s coming up next.