# The CTO Told Me to Leave Cursor On. The Interview Got Harder.

DevFeed: [The CTO Told Me to Leave Cursor On. The Interview Got Harder.](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-cto-told-me-to-leave-cursor-on-the-interview-got-harder-32379.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://brianjenney.substack.com/p/the-cto-told-me-to-leave-cursor-on>)

Author: Brian Jenney

Published: 2026-01-02T18:00:56Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Brian Jenney](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/brian-jenney.md>)

Topics: [cursor](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cursor.md>), [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/coding.md>), [Code](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/code.md>)

Tags: [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-tools](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-tools.md>), [cursor](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cursor.md>), [interview](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interview.md>), [vs-code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vs-code.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that AI-assisted coding interviews can be more demanding than traditional live-coding interviews. Using Cursor may require candidates to explain their prompting, code-selection, and problem-solving decisions, while pretending not to use AI or claiming to understand code they cannot explain can undermine their performance.

## Source excerpt

"Are you using any AI tools we should know about?"