The writing is on the wall- cheating is being normalised in tech interviews.
I'm here to tell you that:
Game theory of steroid use in the Olympics
So let’s talk about the Olympics for a second. For any given sport, there are only 3 medals. Anything else is failure. All or nothing.
Ok, so assuming roughly that everyone there has got similar talent, only 3 people have to cheat to get a major advantage and shut you out.
Put yourself in the mind of an Olympic athlete. You look at the hundreds (thousands?) of competitors around you, and wonder, "what if just 3 of them are on performance enhancers?".
So then some of your compatriots decide to cheat, can't blame them. You keep your modestly, you don't. So what happens? Overtime this increases the average bar to medal.
The Tour de France offers a vivid example. The steep jump (mid-1990s → mid-2000s) coincides with the sport’s most notorious doping era. Graph from bikeraceinfo.com
Suddenly, you're not competitive, and you wonder to yourself, "am I the only lemming that isn't cheating?".
The game theoretic pressure is clear.
You might be the only lemming that isn't cheating in Tech
The game theory for SWE assessments are identical. Thousands of applicants vying for the same position. You get it or you don't. All or nothing.
Just one person has to cheat. In fact, AI is way better than steroids because it guarantees you will pass the trial.
Also, at least in the Olympics there are serious safeguards for catching cheaters, but in tech, so many interviews have zero meaningful measures to catch performance-enhanced SWEs. Too many rely on an "honour" system, despite the fact that it's clear that the Overton Window shifted many months ago. This isn't naivety, it's harmful- they're perpetuating this cycle and putting the few 'honourable' candidates in a really unfair position.