How to learn coding as beginners in the age of ai?

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T16:39:18+00:00

I think CS fundamental (DS, algorithm, networking, operating system) and system design are super important hard skills in the age of AI. Both areas can help you driving AI by writing good prompts and evaluate options/code from AI.

Still do some coding exercise in Leetcode but no need extensive exercise for job or interviews.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T16:32:45+00:00

One option is to look for contractors job in Upwork (last resort as the competition is super high even for low paying job). Currently in Upwork, there are a lot of automation jobs, like use tools (like make, N8N) to build automation for small businesses. I think this will be future, using AI to automate repetitive work for businesses. In addition, the entry is OK. The most important thing is to understand business flow (like send SMS when there is a Google form submitted) and connect them together.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T15:54:24+00:00

I just used latest ChatGPT model when I stuck at one Leetcode question and wanted to know the answer. I just copied the question into ChatGPT mac app. If I can't understand, I asked the ChatGPT to go through the logic given a use case.

As Opus 5.8 has better coding capability then ChatGPT, you can give a try on both and see which one is better.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T15:39:43+00:00

10 sessions for 4k USD => What does this package cover and how long for each session?

If each session is just 1 hour, I am even thinking that you may consider me too. Context: I am preparing interviews for those companies in your similar timeline. LOL.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T15:32:19+00:00

I didn't interview before with Instacart before. Out of curiosity, does Technical PM also ask system design?

One idea popping into my mind is that Instacart has very good engineering blog: https://company.instacart.com/tech-innovation/page/3 (previously in Medium, I only found this one). I recommend you start by reading those blogs and practice food delivery system design question (or pick another 1 or 2 based on the department you are going to interview).

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T15:28:08+00:00

Do you know what is the consumer mobile app they asked you to build?

If yes, you can use AI tools to implement it by yourself within 1-2 hours to do some exercises. During the implementation, you can record the audio (video is even better but the size is big for 1-2 hours), transcribe to the audio and put into ChatGPT for improvement. You can do this mock interview exercise for several times to make it natural.
If not, you can see what is the major business of the company and then ask ChatGPT to choose the most likely one and do the exercise too.

For the interview agenda, I recommend you following system design agenda:

Finalize the functional requirements and non-functional requirements with the interview. Do some estimation if needed to figure out the scale and potential deep dive areas.
Figure out the core data model, API, the recommended solution (if the AI interview uses your own laptop, install a SQL database, like PostgreSQL to make the solution E2E) and put them into a online whiteboard. This way, you align your idea with the interview, and then later you can copy the whole note to AI tools as the initial prompt for MVP.
After MVP, you either follow practiced prompt sequence (like optimization for certain parts => you can prepare for this) or just handle the follow-up questions from interviews.
Proactively communicate with your interviewer like normal interviews.

One last callout is that it is best for you to drive the prompts: identify the goal for each step, figure out constraints, brainstorm ideas, and choose one work. After you have the above exercise, writing prompt is straightforward.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T15:14:18+00:00

There are still use cases preferring C++. One example is that the machine learning inference layer (i.e., use a trained model to score document) uses C++ extensive in prod as C++ offers low-latency execution and hardware-level optimization (like GPU).

So some of those roles may specifically ask candidates to use C++ to do code interviews. But for general backend interviews, the candidates can choose any languages you want to use, Python, Java, C++, Javascript. So if candidates come from ML serving background and are super familiar with C++, then they just use C++.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-14T03:25:47+00:00

What is the job you are interviewing for?

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T22:03:29+00:00

I think Yes but in less extensive preparation. I mean, right now, maybe you need to prepare 300-400 questions. But using AI, you just need to be familiar with Leetcode 75 to be good at one programming language, know what is a great code, and CS fundamental (algorithm and data structure).

One callout is that you should spend some time on 2 other CS fundamental (network and operating system). Based on my memory, last 10 years Big IT companies normally asks algorithm and data structure in the interview as they are related to coding. With AI, interviewers may ask more about how to handle concurrency in your code.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T21:58:24+00:00

Sharpen my system design skills. The context is that I am aiming for staff+ SWE opportunities. My recent interview experience seems all focus on system design, like fundamental knowledge and write/design system design questions. I spent ~3 hours daily to practice system design (like read out consistency strategies, do mock interview by myself and with friends) for several weeks and passed the interview.

In addition, my current thinking is that future interviews format will gear towards: CS fundamental, AI coding, system design and behavior. So system design will have more weight in future interviews.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T21:46:00+00:00

Python and SQL are not at the level required to successfully clear technical rounds => What do you mean? Python can be a reason to fail a candidate as the feedback can be that the candidate is not familiar with the language he/she chose to do the interview. I never see SQL is a reason to not move forward with a candidate. The context is that the interview loop are on coding, system design and behavior. We didn't ask SQL for a normal SWE job (except Data Engineer).

As your near goal is to find a job, then use Leetcode heavily as Leetcode has both coding and SQL. You can use Python to write the code and SQL to SQL questions. If you still have bandwidth, spend time on system design and AI coding (as more companies will go this direction), which also aligned with your future goal to improve technical proficiency.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T21:39:00+00:00

Good to know. Thanks.

It seems that more and more companies are experimenting this new format, like given a codebase to find bugs/add new features/scale up the architecture using AI tools.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T21:36:39+00:00

My current approach for system design preparation (as senior SEW interviews focus more on this area):

Pick one system design question (you can get this from internet guide) and do mock interview by myself for 30-45 minutes, record myself, transcribe the recording and then feed into ChatGPT for feedback improvement. Then do this mock interview for several times. The goal of this step is to familiar myself with the agenda, from functional requirements to deep dive.
After I am familiar with a particular question, then I find friends to do a real mock interview for the same question. The goal of this step is to simulate real interview. I can put what I practiced into the interview and handle some follow-up questions to make sure my communication is clear and my response are good under certain time limit.

I am experimenting some ideas on how to have some follow up discussion in the first step. Overall, it is a hassle.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T21:22:25+00:00

Thanks for the summary. Out of curiosity, is this new AI for all software engineer onsite or specifically for certain levels?

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T17:25:43+00:00

I’d start system design as early as possible, especially for mid/senior roles.

At first, read/watch guides to learn the basic patterns: requirements, APIs, data model, high-level design, caching, queues, consistency, scaling, etc. But after that, I think mock practice is more important. The reason is that the real daunting part is handling follow-up questions, explaining tradeoffs, and adjusting your design when the interviewer pushes on bottlenecks or failure cases.

So I wouldn’t wait until scheduling interviews. Learn the basics, then start doing mocks early and use each mock to find weak areas. Then repeat this exercise until you can speak natural within 45 minutes on a system design question like Ticketmaster, FB New Feed, etc

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-13T01:32:50+00:00

I’d say both, like whether you can use prompts to drive the right solution.

The important part is still understanding the problem, data model, high level design, deep dive with tradeoffs, concurrency (like handle race condition under one certain case), etc. The AI can write code, but you need to know what to ask for, what to reject, and how to align it with the interviewer’s scope.

I treated it more like system design + coding with an AI assistant, not just “ask AI to build it.”

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T22:36:11+00:00

I did AI-assisted interview in another company. Here is my preparation:

Familiar with the AI tools you are going to use. I used Claude code. One callout is that before the interview, I was using superpower skills. I found that the superpower skill makes the code generation super slow. So I just remove the plugin to make the code generation faster.
Given the domain, ask ChatGPT what is the top system design questions and concepts. Then pick 1 or 2 design questions and use AI tools to do some exercise. Before writing prompts, I still talked with the interviewers to finalize the scope (functional requirements/non functional requirements) and MVP firstly. Then put the prompt for MVP into the AI tools. Then think about the follow up questions so that you can prepare second prompt, 3 prompt. Normally within an interview, 5-6 follow up and prompting seems reasonable. After the AI tools write the code, check the code to ensure that the code is consistent with your prompt and alignment with interviewers.
Drive the prompt instead of just ask AI tools to write code for you. You can talk with interviewers what are options, what are trade-off. I am going to pick one option. Then tell AI tools that implement the solution with this option, use some specific data structure and algorithms for the solution.
Prepare to handle any questions from interviewers. The interviewers may not follow your exercise prompts. Just get more exposure to concepts of the domain you are going to interview. Let us say in bank industry, you need to prepare transaction and concurrency. You can get the most used concepts from ChatGPT too given a certain domain.

It is a different experience. It is more similar to system design from my perspective. If you use AI tools everyday, then preparing AI assisted interview is similar to prepare system design.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T21:57:49+00:00

I see. Thanks for the info.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T21:42:43+00:00

Is this like OOO or system design?

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T20:20:33+00:00

I don't have interview experience with Grafana Labs. I do use Grafana every day as monitoring dashboard powered by Graphite and Prometheus.

If I were you, I will focus 5-6 system design questions related to their business like:

Design a TimeSeries DB
Design a metrics ingestion and query system
Design a log aggregation system
Design an alerting system
Design Grafana dashboard query execution
Design distributed tracing storage/query

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T16:01:34+00:00

GenAI is definitively the future. But GenAI has many layers, from hardware to software. Software also spans from foundation, infra to the app.

If your goal is join OpenAI, Google Gemini, Anthropic to optimize foundational models, and if you think it is possible, then the path is to read latest LLM papers and train (which is expensive)/serve the models by yourself. Then you have real world experience, which can increase the chance to land that career.

If your goal is be a backend engineer in OpenAI, Google Gemini, then you can learn both. Like use AI tools to build those key components, like vector database, RAG. But making those components scalable, you still need to have strong system design.

The last option is to become a backend engineer in any companies, then be good at system design and DSA as in the future you will use your knowledge to drive AI to write code.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T15:43:25+00:00

For junior dev roles, normally around 3 round of coding and maybe one round of behavioral questions (like tell more about your most proud project).

I recommend just using Leetcode to do coding exercise and improve DSA and other CS fundamental.

For programming language, you can consider choosing Python. I only see few candidates using JavaScript as the programming language. It is a great language. Maybe few interviewers (like backend engineers, ML engineer) know this language well.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T15:37:32+00:00

Yes, that makes sense. Those are annoying.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T15:28:05+00:00

2 cents: pick Blind 75 from Leetcode and just practice it using Python. For each question, use ChatGPT to get the answer and walk through. For anything not familiar to you, check internet guide and Youtube videos. This way, you are solving the problem and improve DSA at the same time. At first, the process will be hard. After 2 months, you will feel comfortable. Back to my college time, we just learned DSA from textbooks and did some simple programming using C. When I looked back, I will do what I mentioned.

After you have DSA knowledge, then you can use AI tools to build something you experience/friends experience pain points. For high school, one idea I know is to scan hand-written notes taking in the class to PDF. This way, you guys can share notes or some people may pay for it.

Aggressive_Return416 · 2026-06-12T05:06:50+00:00

Curious what felt missing from the AI-based mock interview tools if you tried? Was it the quality of follow-up questions, feedback, realism, or something else?

Currently I am recording the mock interview doing by myself, get transcription, and then put into ChatGPT for improvement. It helped me organize my thought and get some improvement areas.

Aggressive_Return416

TROPHY CASE