1 min lesson
The no-AI technical screen
Walk through each part of "The no-AI technical screen", then explain what each one does.
Step 1 of 2
This is the stage that surprises people the most: the company that sells AI coding turns it off when it tests you. Beyond plain editor autocomplete, no AI is allowed in the technical screens. You have to be sharp without the very tool the company makes.
Why they ban it
Michael Truell's framing is blunt: programming without AI is still a really good time-boxed test for skill and intelligence. They aren't testing whether you can drive a model. They're testing whether the thinking underneath is yours. So the prep is unglamorous - get fluent again at writing real code from memory.
What to expect
- Format
- Typically one medium-hard problem in ~60 min, sometimes across more than one round.
- Flavor
- DOM / UI-shaped or algorithmic, depending on the interviewer.
- Allowed
- Editor autocomplete only - no chat, no agent, no inline AI.
- Graded on
- Correctness and clarity first; cleverness is not the point.