Coding interviews

For a technical interview, turn on Enable Coding Support and choose your Programming Language. When Copilot recognizes a coding question, the answer includes a complete working solution in that language, with an explanation you can talk through.

Turn on Coding Support

Programming Language starts as Python. You can choose from 40 languages, from Java, C++, C#, JavaScript and Go to SQL, Bash / Shell and MATLAB.

Coding Support is saved on each device and doesn’t sync, so turn it on on the device you’ll use in the interview. Changes apply to the next answer.

What a coding answer includes

With Coding Support on, Copilot treats coding, debugging, algorithm, data structure, SQL and implementation questions as coding questions. It does this whether the question was spoken, typed or shown in a screenshot or photo. The answer includes:

• A complete working solution in a code block, in your chosen language.
• The approach, explained so you can describe it out loud.
• Key tradeoffs, such as a faster solution that uses more memory.
• Time and space complexity, when it matters for the question.

If the interviewer asks for a specific language, Copilot uses that language instead of your default.

Other questions in the same interview, such as behavioral questions, are answered as usual. With Coding Support off, Copilot still answers technical questions, but its answers don’t necessarily include complete code.

Show Copilot the problem

Coding problems are often shared on screen or in a document rather than read out in full. Give Copilot the exact wording:

• Mac and Windows: press ⌘K on Mac or CtrlK on Windows to capture your screen. Mac captures the display your pointer is on. Windows captures your main display.
• iPhone and Android: tap + at the top left of the controls on the Copilot tab, then take a photo of the problem or choose an image.

You can add up to two screenshots or photos. Copilot reads a question shown in them and answers it. They stay attached for every answer until you remove them, so remove them when you move on to a different problem. See Add context: notes, screenshots and photos.

Copilot needs something in the transcript or a typed note before it can answer. If nobody has said anything about the problem yet, type a short note in Add extra context..., such as “Solve the problem in the screenshot”, then ask for an answer.

Tips for coding interviews

• Set up before the interview. Turn on Coding Support, check the language, and do a practice run with a sample problem.
• Use Thinking for hard problems. Thinking takes longer to start but works through the problem more carefully. See Standard or Thinking mode.
• Ask for more. Under the answer, Explain more and Give an example go deeper, and New answer tries a different approach. See Follow-ups.
• Understand the solution before you use it. Interviewers often ask you to explain your code, walk through an example or change it.
• Test your screen share. On Mac and Windows, Interview Pilot is designed to stay out of your screen shares and recordings, but it can’t hide from everything. Run a test share with your meeting app before the interview. See Test before your interview.