HackerRank evaluates candidates on reviewing AI-generated PRs, not prompt engineering
Vivek Ravisankar · ⚡️ The State of AI Engineer Hiring: Cheating, AI Adoption,Junior Devs — Vivek Ravisankar, HackerRank · Nov 8, 2025 · at 16:06
Vivek Ravisankar, CEO of HackerRank, explains how the technical assessment platform evaluates developer competency with AI agents.
0:00 / 0:17exact quote · 17.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“The way we test for the usage of agent stuff is less about, can you prompt the agent to do the work, but more in terms of, hey, I've actually generated a bunch of PRs from Devin or Cloud Code or Gemini or like Codex or whatever. Can you go ahead and like review and how good is your reviewing capabilities on that?”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Vivek Ravisankar
Ravisankar: Developer workforce will expand significantly in the future
“I actually think you're going to see a proliferation of developers. I think you're going to see Way more developers in, in the future. I think the job role will change for sure. I think it's not going to stay the same, but I think you're going to see way more.”
Ravisankar: Tech hiring slope and junior demographics will rebound in six months
“I predict that you're going to see a very different chart on both the slope of the hiring curve, as well as the demographic of the type of hires in the next Six-ish months.”
HackerRank: Junior developer assessments and interviews are up 20-25% year-over-year
“Are companies sending assessments to junior versus senior? How many people they are interviewing? It's grown about 20 to 25% year over year relative to all of the other, other news, news items that you see on social media, where it's like, hey, declining, ever…”
Ravisankar: AI-native companies are the least AI-forward in technical hiring processes
“The AI native or AI forward companies are the least AI forward when it comes to interviewing at high end process.”
Ravisankar: Human craft will become more valuable as AI advances
“I actually think the more AI becomes powerful, the more valuable human craft and other elements are going to become because people are going to easily determine, oh, this is all done by AI. I'm just going to attribute a lower value.”
Ravisankar defines the next-gen 10x developer by fundamentals, AI, and taste
“So this is how we define the next-gen developer or the Tenex developer. You're strong in fundamentals of software engineering. You can use AI across all phases of SDLC. You have very good knowledge of AI concepts and you build with good taste and business acum…”