My First AI Judge Interview: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A developer shares their experience participating in HackerRank’s 'Orchestrate' hackathon, where they built a financial decision tool using AI-assisted coding. The project, named 'Praxi Clew,' required a 30-minute technical interview with an AI judge named Chakra. The author reflects on the challenge of explaining complex, AI-generated code in real-time, noting that they had to rely on AI assistance even during the interview itself to answer specific questions about implementation details. Despite the nerves and the realization that they lacked deep familiarity with some of the generated code, the developer achieved a top 4.5% placement. The experience served as a valuable lesson: building with AI requires a shift in workflow, where developers must prioritize understanding and explaining the logic behind the code as it is being built, rather than treating AI-generated output as a black box.