The old test is showing its age
A whiteboard problem was always an imperfect proxy for real engineering. AI makes it stranger. In the workplace, engineers will use tools. In interviews, many companies still pretend they will not.
That gap creates theater. Theater is bad hiring.
The better screen
Give candidates a generated implementation with subtle bugs. Ask them to review it, test it, improve it, and explain the risk. This is much closer to the work they will actually do.
Strong engineers will stand out because they understand failure modes. Weak engineers will accept plausible output too quickly.
What candidates should prepare
Practice code review. Practice writing tests. Practice debugging unfamiliar code. Practice explaining tradeoffs in plain English.
The future interview is less about whether you can summon syntax from memory and more about whether you can tell good software from expensive nonsense.