May 14, 2025 • 25 mins
This episode is WILD.
We sit down with Mike Mroczka—author, ex-Googler, ex-Salesforce employee, and interview coach—to talk about the growing epidemic of AI-assisted cheating in technical interviews. We're not talking theory—this is what’s actually happening in the trenches.
Mike breaks down:
- Why AI makes it easier than ever to fake your way into a six-figure job
- How companies can design smarter, cheat-proof interview systems
- What red flags recruiters should NEVER ignore
- Why some coaching is helpful—and when it crosses into gray zones
💡 If you’re hiring in tech or interviewing for a tech role, this conversation is non-negotiable. It’s time to outsmart the system—without compromising integrity.
📕 Get Mike’s book: bctci.co/amazon
🌐 Learn more: mikemroczka.com
🎧 Thanks for listening to Hiring Edge — formerly the Salesforce Career Show.
For the full visual - check out JoshForce on YT!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Mroczka (00:00):
There's a difference between sort of
(00:01):
having familiarity with the joband not knowing anything about
coding but trying to pass acoding interview with the help
of AI.
Like there are lots of peoplenow that are just like that's a
$500,000 salary yes, I'd like it.
Like, might as well try what'sthe worst that can happen?
And some people pass theseinterviews because employers
aren't realizing that you cancheat.
Josh Matthews (00:19):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
To Salesforce Hiring Edge theshow for leaders who want to
hire smarter and scale faster.
Josh LeQuire (00:26):
with Salesforce, whether you're building a team
or bringing in a consultingpartner, we're breaking down
what actually works in the realworld.
Josh Matthews (00:31):
All right, let's get into it.
Listeners, a quick note aboutthis recording.
Unfortunately, I was not awarethat this big, fat, sure
microphone that I'm talking intois actually turned off during
this recording.
That means that these AirPodsactually were my microphone and
(00:51):
not the best audio.
Please, if you can bear theaudio on this episode, stick
with it.
I guarantee you there's veryvaluable information and expect
all future podcasts to make surethat Josh has done a mic check.
I really appreciate yourunderstanding.
Thank you, okay.
(01:13):
Mike Marochka is author ofBeyond Cracking, the Coding
Interview.
He's a senior engineer.
He's a former employee ofGoogle and Salesforce and he's
an interview specialist.
He offers coaching tocandidates and helps companies
build cheat-resistant interviewprocesses.
His work on system design andinterview strategy has been
featured on Hacker News,business Insider and Wired.
(01:33):
Welcome Mike Marajka, welcomeMike.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
If you've been following theSalesforce Career Show, you're
aware that we are now calledSalesforce Hiring Edge.
We appreciate you sticking withus through this branding change
.
And I'm joined also by JoshLaQuire, founder of an SI
partner, c Currents.
That's a letter C currentscom,if you want to check that out.
(01:55):
If you're not familiar with me,my name is Josh Matthews.
I run thesalesforcerecruitercom, aka
Salesforce Staffing.
I've been involved in theecosystem starting since 1999,
but really heavily for the lastseven years.
We're super excited that Mike'son the show.
One, because he's an author.
Two, he's an incredibly niceguy and a gifted engineer.
(02:15):
But most importantly, he's hereto help you, our audience, in
really understanding way morethan hopefully you ever thought
of or ever wanted to know abouttechnical interviewing.
And we're going to have twoepisodes and the first episode
is going to be all aboutcheating with AI in interviews.
Now we're going to jump intothat in a heavy way here in a
(02:37):
second, mike, but maybe you canjust tell us a little bit about
you and what you do right nowand where you got started.
Mike Mroczka (02:43):
Yeah, I actually started in physical therapy and
decided that wasn't for me,moved to basically computer
science.
After seeing the Marvel moviesand Iron Man's kind of blasting
all the people, I was like Ineed to do that with AI.
And then now we're in the ageof AI, so it's super cool.
It like came right off the pageand at this point now I kind of
go through the interviewprocess and I help people pass
interviews.
I end up doing a lot of privatecoaching to help people pass
(03:06):
technical interviews.
Engineers specifically have areally hard time with coding
interviews that kind of crop up.
You're asked a lot of things tobe done, sort of on the fly,
and people tend to need a lot ofpractice with that sort of
thing.
So that's kind of what I do onthe side and then, in addition
to that, I also help withcompanies in just this age of AI
.
There's lots of cheating that'sgoing on, so figuring out ways
to kind of combat that is alsopart of my job, okay.
Josh Matthews (03:29):
I got to ask you when someone's getting coaching
from you, does that feel likecheating?
Mike Mroczka (03:34):
at all, not really .
There's usually a lot of workthat goes into preparing for
interviews.
Google, salesforce, even bigtech companies like Netflix and
Amazon as well, also go out oftheir way to show you hey,
there's an exact thing you needto study for.
And even many recruiters willgive resources and say, hey,
here's some links, here's someYouTube videos, go study.
This is something they want youto prep for, because this is
(03:57):
something that requires a lot oftechnical expertise and a lot
of demand to know this sort ofthing on the fly.
So the ability to kind of dothis and to take it seriously is
a lot of what I kind of provide.
Certainly, accountability is abig thing there, too.
It's just sort of like, youknow, having somebody to kind of
whack the stick, so to speak,but it's really a day, just
something that's meant to kindof help people pass the thing.
(04:17):
You don't need coaching inorder to pass it but a lot of
people.
Josh Matthews (04:26):
Okay, that makes sense.
Now there are three.
My understanding is there'sreally a few different styles of
technical interviews.
There's what you just described, which is sort of that live
coding technical interview.
I have some clients that offertake-home technical assessments
right, it's a mini project.
And then there's the technicaldeep dive, the system design
interview.
What are you seeing out therein the ecosystem right now?
(04:48):
That's being used the most.
And of those three and I knowthat there are for different
purposes, right, one might bemore for an architect versus a
coder, but is there one thatstands out as the best,
basically like the best type oftest to protect your company
from making a bad hire?
Mike Mroczka (05:06):
It's a great question.
Yeah, I think the best test isone that's actually robust and
tests different things.
So I actually think they're allnecessary and I've seen
companies even add other ideasand other technical types and
variants to it.
Every company has slightlydifferent processes and certain
rounds are slightly different,but at the end of the day, going
just based on one thing makesit almost it's a challenge to an
(05:27):
engineer to try and gamify itand see what they can do to sort
of maybe not cheat the process.
I don't think a lot of peopleare intentionally well, not as
many people are intentionallycheating as some people would be
led to believe but at the endof the day, it's really
important to test a wide rangeof skill sets and wide range of
skill sets, and that's kind ofwhat any good hiring process
should have.
Josh Matthews (05:44):
Now, with the age of AI, there's a lot going on.
I mean a lot going on, whetherI mean there are people who are
cheating in these tests and, bythe way, I've been involved in
interviewing for 26 years andI've seen almost all of it Proxy
interviewing.
The guy who shows up on sitefor the job isn't the person
(06:07):
that interviewed.
There's just some dude who sitsthere and interviews for
everyone else and then they flyyou out.
You show up to work and they'relike I don't think this is the
same guy.
So there's a lot of.
There's been always been grift,but sometimes does it feel like
sometimes people need to cheatjust to break in.
Mike Mroczka (06:24):
Yeah, I mean it kind of depends on what we mean
by cheating, cause there's onething to stretch the truth a
little like maybe you were ahost and not a waiter in a
previous job, and maybe you'reyou were a security engineer and
not a software engineer, butyou still kind of wrote code.
There's a difference betweensort of having familiarity with
the job and not knowing anythingabout coding.
But trying to pass a codinginterview with the help of AI.
(06:46):
Like there are lots of peoplenow that are just like that's a
$500,000 salary, yes, I'd likeit.
Like might as well try.
What's the worst that canhappen?
And some people pass theseinterviews because employers
aren't realizing that you cancheat.
You can cheat through the wholeprocess.
Now if you're not verycarefully trying to guard
against it, you'll find a lot ofpeople can pass the process
without knowing a singletechnical thing.
Josh Matthews (07:06):
So it sounds like it's a lot easier than ever to
cheat in interviews with AItools and you have a unique job
in this space.
You've already kind ofdescribed a little bit about
what you do, but how do youactually help the companies
protect themselves fromcandidates who are leaning on AI
to get the job.
Mike Mroczka (07:28):
Yeah, I like to describe it a little bit like
one of those phishing emails,you know, if you've ever learned
about phishing and emails, andI don't mean F-I-S-H, I mean
P-H-I-S-H.
So if we have a phishing attackin an email, we now kind of
know, and it's just generalawareness that like hey, we be
careful clicking on links andemails, this can lead to malware
and other sorts of problems.
It's the same thing here.
(07:49):
It's the same thing here, likeawareness goes a long way to
preventing a lot of cheating.
Just knowing what exactly aretypical signs of things that are
problematic.
If you have a candidate that'slike oh no, my camera's not
working, like for one interview,sure, probably not that big a
deal, and certainly there's sortof like a screening interview
to begin with not a not a bigthing.
But if every technicalinterview they're off camera,
(08:10):
that's a kind of a huge red flagand I think most people
intuitively realize that.
But this gets even more true aswe go through other things.
A lot of people are like ifit's on a computer then there's
a chance for cheating, so let'sbring them in.
And they think if you bringsomebody in person, that also
prevents cheating.
But that's not true.
Nowadays we have cameras smallenough to go into an ear and we
have or I'm sorry microphonessmall enough to go into an ear
(08:34):
and camera is small enough tojust fit on a button on a lapel
so you can actually get audioand video syncing to somebody
outside to use chat GPT to getthrough this sort of thing.
There's a couple of big splashesin the news.
I'm not sure if any of you arefamiliar with it, but in North
Korea there is a vested interestto try and get large tech jobs
(08:54):
to sort of fund other governmentprojects and things like that,
and it's kind of been a hugedeal because they've uncovered a
couple of different spy ringsrecently that have gone into big
tech companies.
So people that didn't knowanything about it and people
going into standup and sayingwhat they did and not having a
clue about it, but just sort ofyou know, being fed exactly what
information to say once they'vegotten the job, and then they
stay for a year or two getting ahuge salary to come back, you
(09:16):
know, just to sort of you know.
Josh Matthews (09:19):
Look, it's corporate, it's corporate
espionage, right is what it is,and it's it's grift, and that's
been going on for a very, very,very long time.
I actually knew someone.
Well, I don't know if I couldreally say that I'm aware of
someone that did thatprofessionally for the United
(09:40):
States, you know, for the UnitedStates government.
It's definitely, it definitelyhappens.
I mean, there are cells,sleeper cells, of these types of
people.
I don't think we have to worryabout it at your typical
50-person Salesforce SI practice, right.
But if you're at Google, ifyou're at Amazon, these are
(10:00):
things that we need to bedefinitely aware of.
What do you think is the numberone thing beyond awareness that
hiring managers, hrprofessionals and recruiters
should be paying attention to?
Beyond, you know, the camera?
Mike Mroczka (10:20):
Besides the camera , I think one thing that a lot
of people don't devote enoughattention to are questions
themselves.
So again, we're worried aboutAI and cheating and stuff like
that.
I actually consulted with acompany not too long ago and
they were convinced the wholething like people were just
cheating left and right becauseeveryone was getting answer to
the question immediately.
Again and again, people wouldgive optimal answers.
How on earth could this happenif they weren't cheating?
(10:42):
Well, it turned out it was justa disgruntled employee that
left a post on a public forumwith the six questions that were
in the entire database.
And especially at smallercompanies, this becomes even
more important because you'renot asking thousands of
different questions.
You have to be really carefulwhat questions you're asking and
making sure that they're notposted somewhere publicly,
because all you need is onedisgruntled employee to really
(11:04):
tank your whole interviewprocess.
Yeah Right, discord and Reddit.
Josh Matthews (11:08):
Yeah, but watch out.
I actually had an interviewtoday with a candidate and I
started asking him one question.
It sounded very familiar toanother question that I've
actually, I have a whole blogpost about right and he said,
well, look, I've done myresearch on the kinds of
questions that you ask and Ithought, okay, well, that's
(11:29):
awesome, you know, that's greatbecause I'll be able to tell
these are not technicalquestions, this is about your
failings, your vulnerability,your self-awareness of the
people around you and in yourlife, this kind of thing.
And so there's no, you can sortof prepare a little bit and
think about it a little bit more, but you can't cheat it.
Or, if you tried, I'd find itout, point it out real quick and
(11:50):
I'd eventually get the truthout of you, or I wouldn't hire
you One of the two.
But I thought, okay, this is thevery first time that anyone has
referenced that they'd actuallyread the blog where I asked
this question and that kind ofthing and it was really
fascinating.
So you know, there's this fineline between being prepared and
(12:11):
being nefarious in your research, and it seems like that line is
you know, we want people toresearch, we want people to use
AI, but we don't want people tolean on AI for all of our
solutioning right, but we wantthem to have an awareness and
use it appropriately.
So, when it comes to combatingAI, is there software, are there
(12:33):
tools for protecting you?
I'm not asking you to give awaythe store, because I know that
this is part of how you earnyour living, but what might be
one or two things that hiringmanagers and people who are
interviewing candidates can doto protect themselves?
Mike Mroczka (12:49):
Yeah, I think there's maybe three pieces of
advice I'd give the first onewhen it comes to questions like,
even if you had questions let'ssay you had a specific set of
questions that you used If youjust ask ChatGPT to change them
a little bit, you can reallytwist any question and have it
give you an entirely differentkind of take, and then every
time if you're going in with anew question, that's just
(13:10):
vaguely different, just enoughto where nobody can just
outright prepare for it,especially if it's a technical
question.
It's very easy to do and itreally really kind of prevents
that sort of that scenario wejust talked about of people
knowing exactly what thequestion is and if you change it
just slightly and somebody isreally not technical and not a
good fit for the job, they'renot going to be able to pick up
on it.
So it's that's a very helpfulthing to kind of go through.
(13:30):
So that's one just honestly.
Chat GBT is a great tool byitself.
There are publicly availabletools.
There's some tools thatactually have existed for a long
time.
You know we used to have peoplethat would take the SATs but
for mobility reasons couldn'tget out of the house and
disabilities and things likethat.
So there are things that willlet you basically have them
download software on theircomputer and definitely it's
it's an option, but in general Ithink that's actually overkill
(13:52):
when you kind of couple bothchanging your questions and then
sort of rotating, like justbeing aware of, like all of the
other you know, kind of problemsthat can exist in the interview
process.
You're probably about 90% ofthe way there.
I think this is more aboutawareness than almost anything
else and that last thing I'llsay for just number three is
that at the end of the day, whenthat last thing I'll say for
(14:17):
just number three is that at theend of the day, when it comes
down to this, we're not lookingfor a perfect interview process
that 100% stops all people.
We're just looking to not bethe main target.
So this is exactly like why weyou know, if you have cameras on
your house and you've got thelike beware of dog sign in your
yard, like that goes a long wayto stopping people from doing it
.
So it's it's.
It's very much about just sortof showcasing, that you're kind
of aware of what's going on andpeople usually drop out just
with that in mind.
Josh Matthews (14:35):
That makes an awful lot of sense, and I'd like
to add that this goes for anyinterview question where you can
tweak it a little bit.
A lot of people I've givenadvice for years on the career
show, like just Google, the top10 most commonly asked questions
.
Type up your answers, get itdown to 30 seconds, practice it.
This is not a bad way to prep.
But if someone tweaks those andyou don't have it internalized,
(14:59):
that's you.
You're asking about you, man.
You got to know yourself right,so you can't just rattle.
The idea is to be able toarticulate what you know, and
the preparation can help withthat, and you should be able to
drift and slide with how any ofthose questions go.
I will bring up one thing thathappened the other day.
(15:21):
I think it was on Friday,Thursday or Friday last week.
I interviewed someone.
This person is actually a verygood friend of mine.
He's an architect, he's a verysmart guy, and I interviewed him
and it looked to me like he waslooking at notes when I was
asking him questions.
And I asked him and I wouldhave asked anyone this I said do
(15:42):
you mind if I ask are youreferring to notes right now?
And he's like well, oh, no, no,not at all.
So his baseline of eye tracking.
If anyone knows about eyetracking, you have to know
someone's baseline before youcan tell if they're deviating
from that for lie detection.
His baseline was to look downwhen he's accessing his thoughts
and memories, and it lookedlike he was looking at a
(16:04):
different monitor or looking ata pad on the table.
So all I did was ask him areyou looking at notes?
And he was like, oh no, no, notat all, and he might have even
tilted the camera to show, orsomething like that.
So people may often feel nervousabout calling people on what
they suspect.
It's absolutely, really, reallyimportant to just call them on
(16:26):
it.
Are you a proxy?
Are you using AI?
Did you use chat GPT for thatanswer?
And then and then you knowyou'll see they'll be like, oh
my God, no, that's reallydifferent than no.
Yeah Right, so you've got to beable to, and if you're just
listening to the podcast, Idefinitely recommend, for if you
(16:47):
want to see some of thesefacial expressions of what we're
doing, you can go to Josh Forceon YouTube and watch the actual
video.
Okay, I want Josh to Mr LaQuire, if you could jump in here,
because you have hired manypeople over the years.
You've been involved in theSalesforce ecosystem for what?
At least 11 years.
Josh LeQuire (17:07):
Yeah, since 2011.
Yeah, I've been building nowsince about 2003.
Josh Matthews (17:11):
Okay, so a long time.
You've conducted a variety oftypes of interviews.
You've participated in some.
What you're hearing from Mike,I'm kind of curious, like what's
your take on all of this so far?
Josh LeQuire (17:25):
Yeah, I think.
Well, mike, I'm curious.
You know the code test right isa part of the process.
Mike Mroczka (17:32):
Yeah.
Josh LeQuire (17:33):
I'd imagine there's a series of interviews,
a series of questions.
You're interviewing withtechnical people, non-technical
people.
How important is the code testin your opinion?
Mike Mroczka (17:44):
Yeah, I guess it comes down to how much you want
the person to code.
You know, um, I've definitelymet a lot of people that have
done computer like masters, phdsin computer science and can't
code their way out of acardboard box.
It's amazing the number ofpeople that can't do it, and
sometimes they've gone to getthe advanced degree because they
actually struggle to actuallydo the coding itself and you
know, you know academia iseasier than the actual code.
(18:05):
So it really depends on whatyou're looking for.
If you're not really lookingfor a coder, it's not that
important.
But most technical jobs thatask coding questions, you kind
of need to know what you'redoing.
So I'd say pretty importantusually.
Josh LeQuire (18:16):
Compared to the code test.
Also look at problem solving,because to be a good coder,
programmer or developer, youhave to understand what you're
solving for.
Mike Mroczka (18:32):
How do you interview for that?
Yeah, I think the elephant inthe room that nobody likes to
talk about, I think, is thatthese coding tests are a proxy
for an IQ test, and that makesit sound like, if you're not
able to pass it, you're dumb,and I don't actually think
that's the case at all.
A lot of people don't realizethis, but IQ tests themselves
can be studied, for you could,you know, go in with one thing
and you can study and get abetter score on an IQ test.
A lot of people don't realizethat.
So, again, it comes down tolike what's the goal?
(18:53):
If the goal is to pass acertain interview, of course
you're going to do everythingyou can to kind of try and again
gamify that session.
Uh, that that interview as anengineer it's like reverse
engineering, of course is why wecall it that.
At the end of the day, I think,though, the problem solving
piece comes down to a couple ofthings.
The first and most importantone is just like, when it comes
to technical concepts, can youcommunicate those technical
(19:13):
concepts to somebody else?
Like, let's say, you can't codeit, you're not totally sure how
to do it.
It's kind of there, but youknow, you're not entirely sure
on the syntax.
That's one thing.
Then, like you totally don'tknow what you're doing, can I at
least communicate what I woulddo, even if I don't remember
exactly the syntax, so you canengage in this problem solving
back and forth with aninterviewer and interviewee
without necessarily needing tofocus on the code itself, that
(19:36):
that problem solving piece canstill be there regardless.
So communication, I think, ishugely important.
The other thing again comes downto like, again, what's the role
for?
Is this role a junior engineer?
Is this like a senior engineer,if you have some sort of
architect style role, likethat's going to matter a heck of
a lot that they need to be ableto communicate technical
requirements very clearly andthey also need to know things a
lot more deeply than if it's ajunior role.
(19:57):
So yeah, I think those are kindof the two biggest things.
Does that kind of answer yourquestion?
Josh LeQuire (20:01):
I think it does.
I think what I hear you sayingis you have to calibrate the
depth and breadth of the test ofthe problem solving
capabilities for the role andalso for the company and its
industry, right, like forsomebody who runs a consulting
practice.
For me, the delivery process isas important the ability to
communicate with clients is asimportant as your technical
(20:23):
depth and writing lightningcomponents.
You know writing Lightningcomponents or Apex, right so.
But if I have you in a job towrite Lightning components or
Apex, I need to know you canwrite Lightning components and
Apex too, right so?
But I would say I'm curious,you know, for companies like
Salesforce and Google, whereyou've worked, you know how is
that different than you know,let's say, a services provider,
(20:44):
professional services companylike Seacurrents, in terms of
what they're looking for in theinterview process?
Mike Mroczka (20:49):
Yeah, I think at these big tech companies you
have to realize there's 100,000software engineers that are all
writing code.
They get into a very big codebase.
Google has one of the biggestcode bases on the planet
multi-billions of lines of code.
And it's like I mean, can youimagine that lines and lines of
code?
It multi billions of lines ofcode.
And it's like I mean, can youimagine that lines and lines of
code?
It's like how do you actuallynavigate that?
(21:10):
It's overwhelming.
Especially, junior engineerscome in and it's very common for
them to have no idea, like,even if they're very good and
very technical.
It's like where do you startwith that?
Like, handling ambiguitybecomes incredibly important.
So these types of big fang Iguess big tech companies in
general fang style companies askvery specific things that are
all around scale, because theyscale very at a rapid rate.
So if you're going to writecode, it needs to be able to
(21:31):
last 10 years and it also needsto be able to support a billion
people.
And those skill sets are sortof very different than if you're
working at a startup but you'restill building, like you said,
lightning components and otherthings like that.
Those are important but it'sprobably not like 10 billion
people are necessarily going touse it.
It depends on, of course, thebusiness, I suppose.
(21:52):
But at the end of the day,we're kind of judging different
things.
So from a technical perspective, you can look at things like
how well does the code scale?
You can look at things like howreadable is the code?
If I needed to change the codeto accommodate, like, something
different that the user wasasking for, then like, can my
code be flexible, as we call itextendability?
And at the end of the day,those things are definitely
going to be important andthey're going to be more
important as we're sort of usingit for more and more people.
(22:16):
But the use case is different,you know.
So Google cares about will thisexist and still be able to
exist 10 years from now, whereasyou know if you're writing
something, maybe, and still beable to exist 10 years from now,
whereas you know if you'rewriting something maybe you care
about it, like, will this worktomorrow, which is when it needs
to work for so speed?
It becomes a lot more important.
I think startups and things likethat Meta is actually
controversial like that becausethey're always about move fast
and break things and they don'treally fit the typical archetype
(22:39):
of going through it.
Mike, what has not been sharedwith our audience around
cheating with AI in interviewsthat they should know and I mean
the candidates as well as thehiring managers, kind of thing I
(23:01):
think the thing that AI stillhasn't quite figured out is that
human connection piece.
So whenever you're going tointerview somebody, and whether
they're an engineer that's goingto sit, you know, in a dark
room all day like kind of coding, or if they're going to be
interacting with people, it'sgood for them to be able to kind
of communicate and kind of havethat human connection.
I think, at the end of the day,if you ask a question like hey,
(23:22):
no-transcript, and it's like,can they connect on an emotional
(23:50):
level, ai doesn't do that, atleast not yet.
So I think people need to beaware of that.
Josh Matthews (23:54):
This is funny, like what you just described as
someone using AI to cheat.
Is like when I'm reading mylittle that someone's given me
or that I've typed up.
It's hard.
Mike Morachka, author of BeyondCracking the Coding Interview.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Please stay tuned, everybody.
We will have Mike back with parttwo of this conversation, where
(24:14):
we'll be discussing hiring theright people.
You're listening to Hiring Edgeand Josh LaQuire.
Thanks so much for joining usagain, mike.
We do want to make sure thatpeople can connect with you and
find you.
Now.
Beyond Cracking the CodingInterview can be found at
bcpcico forward slash Amazon.
We will put that up on thevideo for people to see.
(24:38):
If you're watching this on JoshForce on YouTube, they can also
check out your website, whichis Mike Marochka.
I'll spell it it's M-I-K-E forMike and then M-R-O-C-Z-K-Acom,
and on LinkedIn, I promise youit's going to be really easy to
find Just type in Mike M-R-O-Cand it'll probably pop right up.
(24:59):
So you're good to go, mike.
Thanks so much for being on theshow and everyone else, stay
tuned.
We'll be back with some moreincredible insights from Mike.
Bye for now.
There's a difference between sort of
(00:01):
having familiarity with the joband not knowing anything about
coding but trying to pass acoding interview with the help
of AI.
Like there are lots of peoplenow that are just like that's a
$500,000 salary yes, I'd like it.
Like, might as well try what'sthe worst that can happen?
And some people pass theseinterviews because employers
aren't realizing that you cancheat.
Josh Matthews (00:19):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
To Salesforce Hiring Edge theshow for leaders who want to
hire smarter and scale faster.
Josh LeQuire (00:26):
with Salesforce, whether you're building a team
or bringing in a consultingpartner, we're breaking down
what actually works in the realworld.
Josh Matthews (00:31):
All right, let's get into it.
Listeners, a quick note aboutthis recording.
Unfortunately, I was not awarethat this big, fat, sure
microphone that I'm talking intois actually turned off during
this recording.
That means that these AirPodsactually were my microphone and
(00:51):
not the best audio.
Please, if you can bear theaudio on this episode, stick
with it.
I guarantee you there's veryvaluable information and expect
all future podcasts to make surethat Josh has done a mic check.
I really appreciate yourunderstanding.
Thank you, okay.
(01:13):
Mike Marochka is author ofBeyond Cracking, the Coding
Interview.
He's a senior engineer.
He's a former employee ofGoogle and Salesforce and he's
an interview specialist.
He offers coaching tocandidates and helps companies
build cheat-resistant interviewprocesses.
His work on system design andinterview strategy has been
featured on Hacker News,business Insider and Wired.
(01:33):
Welcome Mike Marajka, welcomeMike.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
If you've been following theSalesforce Career Show, you're
aware that we are now calledSalesforce Hiring Edge.
We appreciate you sticking withus through this branding change
.
And I'm joined also by JoshLaQuire, founder of an SI
partner, c Currents.
That's a letter C currentscom,if you want to check that out.
(01:55):
If you're not familiar with me,my name is Josh Matthews.
I run thesalesforcerecruitercom, aka
Salesforce Staffing.
I've been involved in theecosystem starting since 1999,
but really heavily for the lastseven years.
We're super excited that Mike'son the show.
One, because he's an author.
Two, he's an incredibly niceguy and a gifted engineer.
(02:15):
But most importantly, he's hereto help you, our audience, in
really understanding way morethan hopefully you ever thought
of or ever wanted to know abouttechnical interviewing.
And we're going to have twoepisodes and the first episode
is going to be all aboutcheating with AI in interviews.
Now we're going to jump intothat in a heavy way here in a
(02:37):
second, mike, but maybe you canjust tell us a little bit about
you and what you do right nowand where you got started.
Mike Mroczka (02:43):
Yeah, I actually started in physical therapy and
decided that wasn't for me,moved to basically computer
science.
After seeing the Marvel moviesand Iron Man's kind of blasting
all the people, I was like Ineed to do that with AI.
And then now we're in the ageof AI, so it's super cool.
It like came right off the pageand at this point now I kind of
go through the interviewprocess and I help people pass
interviews.
I end up doing a lot of privatecoaching to help people pass
(03:06):
technical interviews.
Engineers specifically have areally hard time with coding
interviews that kind of crop up.
You're asked a lot of things tobe done, sort of on the fly,
and people tend to need a lot ofpractice with that sort of
thing.
So that's kind of what I do onthe side and then, in addition
to that, I also help withcompanies in just this age of AI
.
There's lots of cheating that'sgoing on, so figuring out ways
to kind of combat that is alsopart of my job, okay.
Josh Matthews (03:29):
I got to ask you when someone's getting coaching
from you, does that feel likecheating?
Mike Mroczka (03:34):
at all, not really .
There's usually a lot of workthat goes into preparing for
interviews.
Google, salesforce, even bigtech companies like Netflix and
Amazon as well, also go out oftheir way to show you hey,
there's an exact thing you needto study for.
And even many recruiters willgive resources and say, hey,
here's some links, here's someYouTube videos, go study.
This is something they want youto prep for, because this is
(03:57):
something that requires a lot oftechnical expertise and a lot
of demand to know this sort ofthing on the fly.
So the ability to kind of dothis and to take it seriously is
a lot of what I kind of provide.
Certainly, accountability is abig thing there, too.
It's just sort of like, youknow, having somebody to kind of
whack the stick, so to speak,but it's really a day, just
something that's meant to kindof help people pass the thing.
(04:17):
You don't need coaching inorder to pass it but a lot of
people.
Josh Matthews (04:26):
Okay, that makes sense.
Now there are three.
My understanding is there'sreally a few different styles of
technical interviews.
There's what you just described, which is sort of that live
coding technical interview.
I have some clients that offertake-home technical assessments
right, it's a mini project.
And then there's the technicaldeep dive, the system design
interview.
What are you seeing out therein the ecosystem right now?
(04:48):
That's being used the most.
And of those three and I knowthat there are for different
purposes, right, one might bemore for an architect versus a
coder, but is there one thatstands out as the best,
basically like the best type oftest to protect your company
from making a bad hire?
Mike Mroczka (05:06):
It's a great question.
Yeah, I think the best test isone that's actually robust and
tests different things.
So I actually think they're allnecessary and I've seen
companies even add other ideasand other technical types and
variants to it.
Every company has slightlydifferent processes and certain
rounds are slightly different,but at the end of the day, going
just based on one thing makesit almost it's a challenge to an
(05:27):
engineer to try and gamify itand see what they can do to sort
of maybe not cheat the process.
I don't think a lot of peopleare intentionally well, not as
many people are intentionallycheating as some people would be
led to believe but at the endof the day, it's really
important to test a wide rangeof skill sets and wide range of
skill sets, and that's kind ofwhat any good hiring process
should have.
Josh Matthews (05:44):
Now, with the age of AI, there's a lot going on.
I mean a lot going on, whetherI mean there are people who are
cheating in these tests and, bythe way, I've been involved in
interviewing for 26 years andI've seen almost all of it Proxy
interviewing.
The guy who shows up on sitefor the job isn't the person
(06:07):
that interviewed.
There's just some dude who sitsthere and interviews for
everyone else and then they flyyou out.
You show up to work and they'relike I don't think this is the
same guy.
So there's a lot of.
There's been always been grift,but sometimes does it feel like
sometimes people need to cheatjust to break in.
Mike Mroczka (06:24):
Yeah, I mean it kind of depends on what we mean
by cheating, cause there's onething to stretch the truth a
little like maybe you were ahost and not a waiter in a
previous job, and maybe you'reyou were a security engineer and
not a software engineer, butyou still kind of wrote code.
There's a difference betweensort of having familiarity with
the job and not knowing anythingabout coding.
But trying to pass a codinginterview with the help of AI.
(06:46):
Like there are lots of peoplenow that are just like that's a
$500,000 salary, yes, I'd likeit.
Like might as well try.
What's the worst that canhappen?
And some people pass theseinterviews because employers
aren't realizing that you cancheat.
You can cheat through the wholeprocess.
Now if you're not verycarefully trying to guard
against it, you'll find a lot ofpeople can pass the process
without knowing a singletechnical thing.
Josh Matthews (07:06):
So it sounds like it's a lot easier than ever to
cheat in interviews with AItools and you have a unique job
in this space.
You've already kind ofdescribed a little bit about
what you do, but how do youactually help the companies
protect themselves fromcandidates who are leaning on AI
to get the job.
Mike Mroczka (07:28):
Yeah, I like to describe it a little bit like
one of those phishing emails,you know, if you've ever learned
about phishing and emails, andI don't mean F-I-S-H, I mean
P-H-I-S-H.
So if we have a phishing attackin an email, we now kind of
know, and it's just generalawareness that like hey, we be
careful clicking on links andemails, this can lead to malware
and other sorts of problems.
It's the same thing here.
(07:49):
It's the same thing here, likeawareness goes a long way to
preventing a lot of cheating.
Just knowing what exactly aretypical signs of things that are
problematic.
If you have a candidate that'slike oh no, my camera's not
working, like for one interview,sure, probably not that big a
deal, and certainly there's sortof like a screening interview
to begin with not a not a bigthing.
But if every technicalinterview they're off camera,
(08:10):
that's a kind of a huge red flagand I think most people
intuitively realize that.
But this gets even more true aswe go through other things.
A lot of people are like ifit's on a computer then there's
a chance for cheating, so let'sbring them in.
And they think if you bringsomebody in person, that also
prevents cheating.
But that's not true.
Nowadays we have cameras smallenough to go into an ear and we
have or I'm sorry microphonessmall enough to go into an ear
(08:34):
and camera is small enough tojust fit on a button on a lapel
so you can actually get audioand video syncing to somebody
outside to use chat GPT to getthrough this sort of thing.
There's a couple of big splashesin the news.
I'm not sure if any of you arefamiliar with it, but in North
Korea there is a vested interestto try and get large tech jobs
(08:54):
to sort of fund other governmentprojects and things like that,
and it's kind of been a hugedeal because they've uncovered a
couple of different spy ringsrecently that have gone into big
tech companies.
So people that didn't knowanything about it and people
going into standup and sayingwhat they did and not having a
clue about it, but just sort ofyou know, being fed exactly what
information to say once they'vegotten the job, and then they
stay for a year or two getting ahuge salary to come back, you
(09:16):
know, just to sort of you know.
Josh Matthews (09:19):
Look, it's corporate, it's corporate
espionage, right is what it is,and it's it's grift, and that's
been going on for a very, very,very long time.
I actually knew someone.
Well, I don't know if I couldreally say that I'm aware of
someone that did thatprofessionally for the United
(09:40):
States, you know, for the UnitedStates government.
It's definitely, it definitelyhappens.
I mean, there are cells,sleeper cells, of these types of
people.
I don't think we have to worryabout it at your typical
50-person Salesforce SI practice, right.
But if you're at Google, ifyou're at Amazon, these are
(10:00):
things that we need to bedefinitely aware of.
What do you think is the numberone thing beyond awareness that
hiring managers, hrprofessionals and recruiters
should be paying attention to?
Beyond, you know, the camera?
Mike Mroczka (10:20):
Besides the camera , I think one thing that a lot
of people don't devote enoughattention to are questions
themselves.
So again, we're worried aboutAI and cheating and stuff like
that.
I actually consulted with acompany not too long ago and
they were convinced the wholething like people were just
cheating left and right becauseeveryone was getting answer to
the question immediately.
Again and again, people wouldgive optimal answers.
How on earth could this happenif they weren't cheating?
(10:42):
Well, it turned out it was justa disgruntled employee that
left a post on a public forumwith the six questions that were
in the entire database.
And especially at smallercompanies, this becomes even
more important because you'renot asking thousands of
different questions.
You have to be really carefulwhat questions you're asking and
making sure that they're notposted somewhere publicly,
because all you need is onedisgruntled employee to really
(11:04):
tank your whole interviewprocess.
Yeah Right, discord and Reddit.
Josh Matthews (11:08):
Yeah, but watch out.
I actually had an interviewtoday with a candidate and I
started asking him one question.
It sounded very familiar toanother question that I've
actually, I have a whole blogpost about right and he said,
well, look, I've done myresearch on the kinds of
questions that you ask and Ithought, okay, well, that's
(11:29):
awesome, you know, that's greatbecause I'll be able to tell
these are not technicalquestions, this is about your
failings, your vulnerability,your self-awareness of the
people around you and in yourlife, this kind of thing.
And so there's no, you can sortof prepare a little bit and
think about it a little bit more, but you can't cheat it.
Or, if you tried, I'd find itout, point it out real quick and
(11:50):
I'd eventually get the truthout of you, or I wouldn't hire
you One of the two.
But I thought, okay, this is thevery first time that anyone has
referenced that they'd actuallyread the blog where I asked
this question and that kind ofthing and it was really
fascinating.
So you know, there's this fineline between being prepared and
(12:11):
being nefarious in your research, and it seems like that line is
you know, we want people toresearch, we want people to use
AI, but we don't want people tolean on AI for all of our
solutioning right, but we wantthem to have an awareness and
use it appropriately.
So, when it comes to combatingAI, is there software, are there
(12:33):
tools for protecting you?
I'm not asking you to give awaythe store, because I know that
this is part of how you earnyour living, but what might be
one or two things that hiringmanagers and people who are
interviewing candidates can doto protect themselves?
Mike Mroczka (12:49):
Yeah, I think there's maybe three pieces of
advice I'd give the first onewhen it comes to questions like,
even if you had questions let'ssay you had a specific set of
questions that you used If youjust ask ChatGPT to change them
a little bit, you can reallytwist any question and have it
give you an entirely differentkind of take, and then every
time if you're going in with anew question, that's just
(13:10):
vaguely different, just enoughto where nobody can just
outright prepare for it,especially if it's a technical
question.
It's very easy to do and itreally really kind of prevents
that sort of that scenario wejust talked about of people
knowing exactly what thequestion is and if you change it
just slightly and somebody isreally not technical and not a
good fit for the job, they'renot going to be able to pick up
on it.
So it's that's a very helpfulthing to kind of go through.
(13:30):
So that's one just honestly.
Chat GBT is a great tool byitself.
There are publicly availabletools.
There's some tools thatactually have existed for a long
time.
You know we used to have peoplethat would take the SATs but
for mobility reasons couldn'tget out of the house and
disabilities and things likethat.
So there are things that willlet you basically have them
download software on theircomputer and definitely it's
it's an option, but in general Ithink that's actually overkill
(13:52):
when you kind of couple bothchanging your questions and then
sort of rotating, like justbeing aware of, like all of the
other you know, kind of problemsthat can exist in the interview
process.
You're probably about 90% ofthe way there.
I think this is more aboutawareness than almost anything
else and that last thing I'llsay for just number three is
that at the end of the day, whenthat last thing I'll say for
(14:17):
just number three is that at theend of the day, when it comes
down to this, we're not lookingfor a perfect interview process
that 100% stops all people.
We're just looking to not bethe main target.
So this is exactly like why weyou know, if you have cameras on
your house and you've got thelike beware of dog sign in your
yard, like that goes a long wayto stopping people from doing it
.
So it's it's.
It's very much about just sortof showcasing, that you're kind
of aware of what's going on andpeople usually drop out just
with that in mind.
Josh Matthews (14:35):
That makes an awful lot of sense, and I'd like
to add that this goes for anyinterview question where you can
tweak it a little bit.
A lot of people I've givenadvice for years on the career
show, like just Google, the top10 most commonly asked questions
.
Type up your answers, get itdown to 30 seconds, practice it.
This is not a bad way to prep.
But if someone tweaks those andyou don't have it internalized,
(14:59):
that's you.
You're asking about you, man.
You got to know yourself right,so you can't just rattle.
The idea is to be able toarticulate what you know, and
the preparation can help withthat, and you should be able to
drift and slide with how any ofthose questions go.
I will bring up one thing thathappened the other day.
(15:21):
I think it was on Friday,Thursday or Friday last week.
I interviewed someone.
This person is actually a verygood friend of mine.
He's an architect, he's a verysmart guy, and I interviewed him
and it looked to me like he waslooking at notes when I was
asking him questions.
And I asked him and I wouldhave asked anyone this I said do
(15:42):
you mind if I ask are youreferring to notes right now?
And he's like well, oh, no, no,not at all.
So his baseline of eye tracking.
If anyone knows about eyetracking, you have to know
someone's baseline before youcan tell if they're deviating
from that for lie detection.
His baseline was to look downwhen he's accessing his thoughts
and memories, and it lookedlike he was looking at a
(16:04):
different monitor or looking ata pad on the table.
So all I did was ask him areyou looking at notes?
And he was like, oh no, no, notat all, and he might have even
tilted the camera to show, orsomething like that.
So people may often feel nervousabout calling people on what
they suspect.
It's absolutely, really, reallyimportant to just call them on
(16:26):
it.
Are you a proxy?
Are you using AI?
Did you use chat GPT for thatanswer?
And then and then you knowyou'll see they'll be like, oh
my God, no, that's reallydifferent than no.
Yeah Right, so you've got to beable to, and if you're just
listening to the podcast, Idefinitely recommend, for if you
(16:47):
want to see some of thesefacial expressions of what we're
doing, you can go to Josh Forceon YouTube and watch the actual
video.
Okay, I want Josh to Mr LaQuire, if you could jump in here,
because you have hired manypeople over the years.
You've been involved in theSalesforce ecosystem for what?
At least 11 years.
Josh LeQuire (17:07):
Yeah, since 2011.
Yeah, I've been building nowsince about 2003.
Josh Matthews (17:11):
Okay, so a long time.
You've conducted a variety oftypes of interviews.
You've participated in some.
What you're hearing from Mike,I'm kind of curious, like what's
your take on all of this so far?
Josh LeQuire (17:25):
Yeah, I think.
Well, mike, I'm curious.
You know the code test right isa part of the process.
Mike Mroczka (17:32):
Yeah.
Josh LeQuire (17:33):
I'd imagine there's a series of interviews,
a series of questions.
You're interviewing withtechnical people, non-technical
people.
How important is the code testin your opinion?
Mike Mroczka (17:44):
Yeah, I guess it comes down to how much you want
the person to code.
You know, um, I've definitelymet a lot of people that have
done computer like masters, phdsin computer science and can't
code their way out of acardboard box.
It's amazing the number ofpeople that can't do it, and
sometimes they've gone to getthe advanced degree because they
actually struggle to actuallydo the coding itself and you
know, you know academia iseasier than the actual code.
(18:05):
So it really depends on whatyou're looking for.
If you're not really lookingfor a coder, it's not that
important.
But most technical jobs thatask coding questions, you kind
of need to know what you'redoing.
So I'd say pretty importantusually.
Josh LeQuire (18:16):
Compared to the code test.
Also look at problem solving,because to be a good coder,
programmer or developer, youhave to understand what you're
solving for.
Mike Mroczka (18:32):
How do you interview for that?
Yeah, I think the elephant inthe room that nobody likes to
talk about, I think, is thatthese coding tests are a proxy
for an IQ test, and that makesit sound like, if you're not
able to pass it, you're dumb,and I don't actually think
that's the case at all.
A lot of people don't realizethis, but IQ tests themselves
can be studied, for you could,you know, go in with one thing
and you can study and get abetter score on an IQ test.
A lot of people don't realizethat.
So, again, it comes down tolike what's the goal?
(18:53):
If the goal is to pass acertain interview, of course
you're going to do everythingyou can to kind of try and again
gamify that session.
Uh, that that interview as anengineer it's like reverse
engineering, of course is why wecall it that.
At the end of the day, I think,though, the problem solving
piece comes down to a couple ofthings.
The first and most importantone is just like, when it comes
to technical concepts, can youcommunicate those technical
(19:13):
concepts to somebody else?
Like, let's say, you can't codeit, you're not totally sure how
to do it.
It's kind of there, but youknow, you're not entirely sure
on the syntax.
That's one thing.
Then, like you totally don'tknow what you're doing, can I at
least communicate what I woulddo, even if I don't remember
exactly the syntax, so you canengage in this problem solving
back and forth with aninterviewer and interviewee
without necessarily needing tofocus on the code itself, that
(19:36):
that problem solving piece canstill be there regardless.
So communication, I think, ishugely important.
The other thing again comes downto like, again, what's the role
for?
Is this role a junior engineer?
Is this like a senior engineer,if you have some sort of
architect style role, likethat's going to matter a heck of
a lot that they need to be ableto communicate technical
requirements very clearly andthey also need to know things a
lot more deeply than if it's ajunior role.
(19:57):
So yeah, I think those are kindof the two biggest things.
Does that kind of answer yourquestion?
Josh LeQuire (20:01):
I think it does.
I think what I hear you sayingis you have to calibrate the
depth and breadth of the test ofthe problem solving
capabilities for the role andalso for the company and its
industry, right, like forsomebody who runs a consulting
practice.
For me, the delivery process isas important the ability to
communicate with clients is asimportant as your technical
(20:23):
depth and writing lightningcomponents.
You know writing Lightningcomponents or Apex, right so.
But if I have you in a job towrite Lightning components or
Apex, I need to know you canwrite Lightning components and
Apex too, right so?
But I would say I'm curious,you know, for companies like
Salesforce and Google, whereyou've worked, you know how is
that different than you know,let's say, a services provider,
(20:44):
professional services companylike Seacurrents, in terms of
what they're looking for in theinterview process?
Mike Mroczka (20:49):
Yeah, I think at these big tech companies you
have to realize there's 100,000software engineers that are all
writing code.
They get into a very big codebase.
Google has one of the biggestcode bases on the planet
multi-billions of lines of code.
And it's like I mean, can youimagine that lines and lines of
code?
It multi billions of lines ofcode.
And it's like I mean, can youimagine that lines and lines of
code?
It's like how do you actuallynavigate that?
(21:10):
It's overwhelming.
Especially, junior engineerscome in and it's very common for
them to have no idea, like,even if they're very good and
very technical.
It's like where do you startwith that?
Like, handling ambiguitybecomes incredibly important.
So these types of big fang Iguess big tech companies in
general fang style companies askvery specific things that are
all around scale, because theyscale very at a rapid rate.
So if you're going to writecode, it needs to be able to
(21:31):
last 10 years and it also needsto be able to support a billion
people.
And those skill sets are sortof very different than if you're
working at a startup but you'restill building, like you said,
lightning components and otherthings like that.
Those are important but it'sprobably not like 10 billion
people are necessarily going touse it.
It depends on, of course, thebusiness, I suppose.
(21:52):
But at the end of the day,we're kind of judging different
things.
So from a technical perspective, you can look at things like
how well does the code scale?
You can look at things like howreadable is the code?
If I needed to change the codeto accommodate, like, something
different that the user wasasking for, then like, can my
code be flexible, as we call itextendability?
And at the end of the day,those things are definitely
going to be important andthey're going to be more
important as we're sort of usingit for more and more people.
(22:16):
But the use case is different,you know.
So Google cares about will thisexist and still be able to
exist 10 years from now, whereasyou know if you're writing
something, maybe, and still beable to exist 10 years from now,
whereas you know if you'rewriting something maybe you care
about it, like, will this worktomorrow, which is when it needs
to work for so speed?
It becomes a lot more important.
I think startups and things likethat Meta is actually
controversial like that becausethey're always about move fast
and break things and they don'treally fit the typical archetype
(22:39):
of going through it.
Mike, what has not been sharedwith our audience around
cheating with AI in interviewsthat they should know and I mean
the candidates as well as thehiring managers, kind of thing I
(23:01):
think the thing that AI stillhasn't quite figured out is that
human connection piece.
So whenever you're going tointerview somebody, and whether
they're an engineer that's goingto sit, you know, in a dark
room all day like kind of coding, or if they're going to be
interacting with people, it'sgood for them to be able to kind
of communicate and kind of havethat human connection.
I think, at the end of the day,if you ask a question like hey,
(23:22):
no-transcript, and it's like,can they connect on an emotional
(23:50):
level, ai doesn't do that, atleast not yet.
So I think people need to beaware of that.
Josh Matthews (23:54):
This is funny, like what you just described as
someone using AI to cheat.
Is like when I'm reading mylittle that someone's given me
or that I've typed up.
It's hard.
Mike Morachka, author of BeyondCracking the Coding Interview.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Please stay tuned, everybody.
We will have Mike back with parttwo of this conversation, where
(24:14):
we'll be discussing hiring theright people.
You're listening to Hiring Edgeand Josh LaQuire.
Thanks so much for joining usagain, mike.
We do want to make sure thatpeople can connect with you and
find you.
Now.
Beyond Cracking the CodingInterview can be found at
bcpcico forward slash Amazon.
We will put that up on thevideo for people to see.
(24:38):
If you're watching this on JoshForce on YouTube, they can also
check out your website, whichis Mike Marochka.
I'll spell it it's M-I-K-E forMike and then M-R-O-C-Z-K-Acom,
and on LinkedIn, I promise youit's going to be really easy to
find Just type in Mike M-R-O-Cand it'll probably pop right up.
(24:59):
So you're good to go, mike.
Thanks so much for being on theshow and everyone else, stay
tuned.
We'll be back with some moreincredible insights from Mike.
Bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.