Sierra Replaces Coding and Algorithm Interviews with a 2-Hour AI-Assisted Product Build

CoinDesk reports that on April 23 (UTC+8), according to monitoring by Beating, AI customer service agent company Sierra has unveiled a redesigned engineering interview process, eliminating traditional coding and algorithm interviews. The new process consists of three stages: In the Plan phase, candidates lead the product concept development; in the Build phase, candidates independently construct a product within two hours, freely using any AI tools and frameworks; and in the Review phase, candidates present their results and discuss technical decisions, data models, and deployment pathways. Sierra has also replaced the coding test in phone screenings with a systems design interview, reasoning that building applications with AI has become straightforward, while the greater challenge—and more critical skill—is deploying applications at scale. The team is also piloting a debugging interview: candidates are given a medium-sized codebase and a draft pull request introducing a cross-cutting feature, and are asked to review and improve it. Sierra states that the new process shifts the evaluation focus from “Should we hire this person?” to “Where does this person excel, and how can we match them to the right role?” Candidate feedback has been largely positive, with some using AI during the interview to build an adaptive-difficulty Q&A game, which interviewers then played directly during the demo.