Luigi Taira D.

Tech Lead at KATIX Inc.

At my core, I’m a builder. I’ve spent most of my career as a software engineer, but what really drives me is designing systems. Whether it’s an app architecture, a compiler for fun on the weekends, or the hiring and onboarding process at my company. I’m always trying to create structure out of chaos, because I know firsthand how messy things can get when you just let them run.

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Session

Thank God it’s not LeetCode: Interviewing in the age of AI.

Too often, technical interviews feel like nightmare puzzles that measure how well someone has memorized algorithms instead of how they solve real problems. With Gilded Rose, we flipped the script: it’s messy legacy code with unclear rules, and the task is to bring order to that chaos. Candidates have to read, reason, and communicate, just like on the job, and that gives us a far clearer picture than a contrived brainteaser ever could.

This approach isn’t about evaluating coding ability, it’s about seeing how someone thinks under pressure, how they explain trade-offs in real time, and whether they can balance pragmatism with maintainability. It’s also resilient in an AI-heavy world; tools can suggest code, but they can’t articulate why a refactor matters or defend a design choice in front of a panel. After running this process many times, we’ve found it both fairer to candidates and more predictive for us as a company. By the end of this session, I hope you’ll see how a simple kata can evolve into a scalable, culture-aligned way of hiring that actually builds better teams.

Language: en