[radug14]

Hi everyone, I’m Radu.

In my personal experience, screening software engineers has always put pressure on internal engineering teams. Over the years, I’ve tried different approaches to streamline the process, but nothing has really fixed the problem of investing engineering time into screening.

At the start of the year I went through BetterStack’s recruitment process. Their first stage, an in-house built async screening test, was a revelation for me. I thought this was a fantastic alternative for an early stage in the recruitment pipeline. Back in February, while I was actively hiring at the startup I was working with, I prototyped a solution and trialed it - it was a success.

Fast forward a few months and I’ve now been able to turn the early prototype into a product. Meet Niju.

Niju replaces the traditional screening call with a 20-minute, asynchronous, recorded coding session.

A candidate gets a link, shares their screen, and "thinks aloud" while solving a practical coding challenge (no abstract algorithms).

After 20 minutes, Niju analyses the entire session: the code, the audio, and the thought process. It gives the hiring manager a concise report, transcripts, code playback and the raw footage with the important parts annotated. This means that, on average, a Niju interview takes 5 minutes to review.

* Cheating: Yes, a candidate can use Google. That's the point. I want to see how they solve a problem, not what they've memorised. The screen recording shows their whole process.

* AI: The AI does not produce a "pass/fail" decision. It just summarises the data to help a human make a better, faster, and more consistent decision.

* Stack: As a solo builder, I'm keeping it simple: SvelteKit, DrizzleORM, BullMQ, Postgres, Redis, Azure OpenAI.

The goal is to help busy engineering teams reclaim their time.

You can try the first interview for free.

I’ll be here for a while to answer questions and I'd be honored to get your feedback.

Radu

[abtinf]

I hope your product sees some adoption. Use of such a system would be a high-signal indicator for companies to avoid.

[radug14]

May I ask why?

I would never approve the use of async interviews further down the pipeline, but for screening purposes (from a candidate POV) I personally don't have any problems.

Keen to hear your point of view!

[parliament32]

Because interviews are a two-way street. If you can't commit the time to interview and want to offload it to AI, why shouldn't I also have AI take the interview for me? Or you do you think my time is worth less than yours?

This is pretty gross, honestly. I recommend some reflection.

[radug14]

Your time is definitely not worth less than the company you are applying to. And I 100% agree interviews should not be offloaded to AI.

This is a screening interview, and the AI component simply assists the hiring manager, it does not automate the outcome in any way.

[parliament32]

So you wouldn't be opposed to me using an AI to solve your "challenge" or whatever it is? After all, this is just a screening interview, the AI component is simply assisting me.

[radug14]

Absolutely, you can solve the challenge in any way you like. You can use AI, StackOverflow, or a friend you have in the room.

[riku_iki]

But we don't know if hiring person spends quality time on looking at all these recordings and transcripts, or just do some superficial keyword matching thing or AI signal.

[vladg1994]

I agree with you on this one sure, but at the same time you wouldn't know if the hiring manager would be spending time looking over your CV if you send it. I don't see where's the fault of the app.

[rendall]

Back in the day, some kind of online sticker company needed a developer. I submitted my resume and they told me via email I needed to pass an online test. The testing was very similar to your company, only of course no AI. I was nervous. Super nervous. Shaking. Psyched myself up for an entire day, then logged in and absolutely crushed it. Crushed that test. It was hard but easier than I expected. Passed 100%. The sticker company then emailed me that they chose someone else, somebody else had a better resume, even though there was no interview. The test was cheap for them, but cost me. So cheap for this sticker company that they could afford to consider my resume only after I had crushed their dumb-ass test.

There needs to be some cost or pain for the interviewers to signal that they actually care.

So, to answer your question, if a company were to outsource their screening calls, it signals to me that they do not have the time to understand their candidates. They simply do not care, which means they don't care for their employees either.

[radug14]

To your other replies, again, this is a screening interview. It aims to assess, in a short time, how you approach a day to day coding problem. It's not about specialised technical requirements - for that you jump on a dedicated technical call. Niju is supposed to sit at the beginning of the technical assessment process.

[rendall]

Sure. You don't have to convince me. I mean, go for it. We're just telling you why we would exit the process immediately as candidates. As an employer, I would take the time to screen someone directly.

[radug14]

Again I want to make it clear that the AI is not driving any decisions, it just summarizes some data points.

The technical screening call typically happens after an initial screening chat with HR or the hiring manager. The tech screening interview comes in after that.

[rendall]

I tell you, this is not a new idea. The only new bit is that AI is slapped on, but it's been done. There is a reason it's not widespread practice. Be honest with yourself: if a company gave you a contract and they decided to do it like the sticker company, test first then check the resume, you would still take their money.

[rendall]

Also, every company has its own unique need. Are you going to tailor your test for every company? Some will need fast JavaScript, some will need slow, deliberate FP. No single test will cover all of these needs. A serious company would never outsource their initial contact to AI.

[yannyu]

If as a hiring organization, you aren't willing to spend the effort, time, and money to provide a good recruiting process, that's a huge red flag for the kind of candidates you want and the kind of employee experience you provide. If you're willing to cut costs in finding candidates, that could signal you're willing to cut costs for retaining candidates too.

[radug14]

I agree and I would never use AI to properly interview someone.

This is a screening interview. It's at the top of the recruitment funnel. The alternative is seeing fewer candidates (because you can't have engineers do non-stop interviews) or just filtering heavily based on CVs. Neither option is good.

[yannyu]

If you as a hiring manager are so busy you can't invest in a thoughtful recruitment process, what's that going to mean when I come onboard? Will I be left to fend for myself in those first few months, feeling overwhelmed by all the new information and team dynamics? Or is it somehow going to be different once I'm employed by you?

[vladg1994]

The way I see it, if you are a hiring manager you are just going to talk to a HR person to screen this people for you actually. The majority of CV's that get to the Hiring Manager get filtered by non-technical HR people. Instead you have a tool that sumarizes the way you interact and think on a 20 min problem solving thingy. Imho I prefer to get a hold of this then having a HR person call me for 15 minutes and talk about my experience and stuff...

[esafak]

This is a screen, though; they are still going to interview you if you pass. The alternative is to screen candidates otherwise in a way that may lead you to be culled (e.g., by your resume) without a chance to get your foot in the door.

[gpm]

They are still going to interview if you choose to move forwards with this one sided time sink [1], and you pass. The first half of that criteria will filter out many of the good candidates.

Which as yanyu says is a signal the company isn't "willing to spend the effort, time, and money to provide a good recruiting process, [which is] a huge red flag for the kind of candidates you want and the kind of employee experience you provide".

Which circles around and creates even more incentive for good candidates not to participate.

There's no doubt a market on both sides for hiring mediocre candidates. Approximately everyone has a job after all, not just the best people, but a tool like this is clearly optimizing for that not for excellence.

[1] See the excellent description of why this is problematic as a candidate who values your own time here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45801853

[yannyu]

That's what makes people feel valued and human, needing to get past a robot before they're allowed to talk to people.

And to be clear, I think hiring today is completely broken already. This kind of thing is just one more step in the direction of marginalizing people who are already struggling to find work. In an already broken hiring system, these approaches to "save engineering time" or "drive a more efficient hiring process" exacerbate the divide between those who have jobs and those who are desperate to get a fair shot, and that’s what feels truly dehumanizing.

[esafak]

Logically, you should prefer a hiring system that casts a wider net using automation if you are struggling to find work, assuming the problem is getting an interview.

[radug14]

This is a super tough, but incredibly valuable thread. Thank you all for the raw feedback.

I need to be clear: I 100% agree with the core sentiment here. As a candidate, the hiring process is often broken, dehumanising, and feels like a one-way street. Many of you are right when saying a tool like this could be abused.

I'm not trying to automate the human part of hiring. I'm trying to fix the part that's already broken.

The real-world alternative at most companies isn't a friendly 1-hour chat with a senior engineer for every single applicant, that just doesn’t scale.

The alternative is:

1. A harsh, biased CV filter that rejects 95% of applicants in a couple of seconds.

2. A 4-hour take-home exercise that massively wastes your time and is genuinely pointless because anyone can vibe code it.

3. An algorithm test from a platform like HackerRank for which the majority of engineers have to prep many hours.

I built Niju to be less painful than those. It's a 20-minute, practical, "think-aloud" test. The AI's only job is to summarise the data so a human can review it faster, making it more likely they'll widen the funnel and give more people a shot beyond just their CV.

My goal isn't to replace engineers but to stop wasting their time on a broken process, so they can have better, human interviews with the top 20% of candidates.

It's a massive challenge, and this thread, as well as most of the others, show the raw nerve I've hit.

[UncleMeat]

> I'm trying to fix the part that's already broken.

The broken part appears to be that somebody spends 20 minutes screening a candidate rather than 5 minutes reviewing an AI summary of the screen. Inefficient, maybe.

Why does this actually get rid of the alternatives? You've reduced the active time to screen a candidate by 75%. But a CV filter reduces it by 95%. Why would your system involve less prep than HackerRank? It is still a test with a critical outcome. The idea that if only we didn't ask algorithmic questions that nobody would spend time rehearsing for interviews is ridiculous.