We’re excited to share the latest updates from HackerRank’s April product release!

AI is now at the heart of how software is built—and this release helps you harness it to hire and upskill the next generation of developers. The AI Interviewer captures signals beyond just code correctness, like thought process and judgment, which are critical in the AI-first world, while Proctor Mode brings greater integrity to assessments by ensuring they play by the rules.

With Engage, you can reconnect with past candidates and launch targeted campaigns to quickly build your pipeline. SkillUp streamlines developer growth with structured learning paths, guided by an AI Tutor. And with added support for cutting-edge tech like RAG and iOS, you’re ready to assess for skills that are shaping the future.

These updates will go live by April 23rd. Join our customer webinar on April 22nd to learn more.

Skills Platform

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

LLMs are powerful, but only when responses are grounded in the right context. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is key to building context-aware AI applications like chatbots and personalized support tools.

You now have access to Library questions to help you identify developers with real-world RAG skills. These run in a native VSCode IDE and include built-in data sources for evaluation. You can also create your own RAG questions using the same setup to match your specific needs. 

RAG Question Creation1.gif

For more information, see Creating a RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) Question, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Question.

iOS Assessments (Limited Availability in Tests and Interviews)

Evaluate iOS developers in a realistic coding environment with a built-in emulator, multi-file support, and a VS Code IDE featuring Swift syntax highlighting and autocompletion.

Candidates can preview their apps in a real time emulator, so you can assess both functionality and UI. These assessments support key frameworks like SwiftUI and reflect real-world iOS development.

iOS assessments are currently in limited availability with ready-to-use Library questions. To get access, contact your account manager or email support@hackerrank.com.

updated IOS.gif

For more information, see Using HackerRank IDE.

QA Skills: Cucumber and Cypress 

You can now assess QA and test automation skills in Cucumber for Behavior-driven development(BDD) testing and Cypress for front-end automation. Candidates can write and run tests directly in the platform, with support for scenario-level execution and automatic scoring.

For more informaion, see Execution Environment.

Code Quality Grading (Limited Availability in Tests)

Correctness is just a small part of writing production-ready code. Maintainability, efficiency, and clarity further demonstrate a developer’s expertise. Code Quality Grading helps you assess these qualities with detailed reviewer comments that highlight strengths and areas for improvement.

Code Quality Grading is currently in limited availability for React and Coding questions. Reach out to your account manager or support@hackerrank.com for more information.

Library Improvements

Natural Language Search

Natural Language Search makes finding the right questions in the Library faster and more intuitive. Just type what you’re looking for - like “Evaluate Python skills with tuples, data frames, and numpy” - and get relevant results instantly.

Content Additions

The HackerRank Library is regularly updated with new challenges, enabling you to assess candidates across a wide range of technical skills.

New Content

Content Quality Upgrades

Clear, well-structured questions help you fairly and accurately evaluate candidates’ skills and potential. The HackerRank library continues to evolve to support better comprehension and more effective skill assessment.

Project questions: Project questions now go through weekly sanity checks that simulate the full candidate experience - from logging in and launching the IDE to building the project, running tests, and verifying previews. 

Over 880 full-stack, frontend, backend, and mobile questions have been reviewed and improved, including optimizations that reduce package installation times and minimize timeout issues. These checks ensure reliable performance and quality for a smooth candidate experience.

Developer Experience

DevOps Assessment Improvements

Candidates can now expect a smoother, more reliable DevOps assessment experience, enabling more accurate evaluation of skills such as infrastructure management and system optimization.

For more information, see Answer DevOps Questions.

New Candidate Site: Coding, MCQ and Database Questions

In response to candidate feedback, the candidate test-taking experience has been redesigned with a cleaner UI, improved layout controls, and a more straightforward onboarding flow.

These enhancements aim to reduce friction and improve focus without adding complexity. The updated experience will be rolled out in phases starting April 23, with full availability expected by the end of May. It will be available for all tests that include Coding, MCQ, and Database questions, or any combination of these. Tests with other question types will continue on the existing test-taking platform.

For more information, see Answer Coding Questions, Answer Database Programming Questions, Answer Multiple-Choice Questions.

Red Hat Java LSP and Higher CPU for Java

Java Project questions now run on the most popular Red Hat-powered Java LSP, delivering improved code autocomplete and diagnostics. We’ve also doubled the CPU allocation for the virtual machine, ensuring faster performance and a smoother candidate experience.

Platform Upgrades

Updated programming languages, and diagnostic tools like LSPs help candidates navigate tests and interviews with greater efficiency. This upgrade includes the following improvements, ensuring your assessment environment reflects the latest industry standards:

WebSocket Connectivity Check

With a new WebSocket connectivity pre-check in place, candidates can enter assessments confidently, minimizing unexpected connection issues that might otherwise prevent the IDE from loading properly.

Screen

Create a Test from a Job Description

You can now speed up test creation by using a job description directly in the process. In the Create Test workflow, simply select “Create Test with Job Description”, paste the job description for the role, and a test focused on the most essential skills will be generated for you.

For more information, see Creating a Test from a Job Description.

External Copy-Paste Prevention in Secure Mode

As an added layer of integrity to Secure Mode - which locks the assessment interface in full-screen mode - candidates will now be unable to copy-paste external text when taking Frontend, Backend, Fullstack, and Coding test questions with Secure Mode enabled. This prevents unauthorized content use, ensuring a fair assessment experience.

This feature is not currently available for the following question types, but will be supported in the future: Subjective, Sentence Completion, DevOps, and Data Science.

For more information, see Secure Mode.

Proctor Mode (Limited Availability in Tests)

Proctor Mode brings AI-powered integrity monitoring to your assessments. While Secure Mode restricts the test environment, Proctor Mode takes things further - offering the rigor of live proctoring without the bias or overhead. During the assessment, the Proctor sets clear expectations, monitors candidate activity in real time (including webcam tracking, tab-switch detection, and periodic screenshots), and delivers a detailed post-test integrity report with session replay, summarized violations, and actionable insights.

Proctor Mode is currently available in limited availability. Reach out to your account manager or support@hackerrank.com for more information.

For more information, see Proctor Mode.

AI Interviewer (Limited Availability in Tests)

AI Interviewer simulates a real technical interview experience by engaging candidates in a dynamic, two-way conversation. It adapts in real time to how candidates think, code, and problem-solve, while continuously monitoring for integrity and providing deep post-interview insights.

Key Highlights:

Supported Skills (Initial Launch):

AI Interviewer is currently available in limited availability. Reach out to your account manager or support@hackerrank.com for more information.

Interview

Observation Mode for Projects

Observation Mode now supports Frontend, Backend and Fullstack questions, enhancing the interview experience for both candidates and interviewers. This feature allows interviewers to follow along in real time as candidates engage with the IDE in a multi-file environment.

For more information, see Observation Mode in Interviews.

Candidate Guidelines for Interviews

Interview guidelines now appear for all candidates at the start of their interview sessions, regardless of whether the Interview Integrity signals feature is enabled. These guidelines provide clear expectations and technical recommendations to help candidates optimize their setup and understand best practices before getting started.

Ashby Integration for Interview Scheduling

Ashby ATS users can now automatically attach HackerRank Interview links when scheduling interviews. When scheduling an interview or creating a scheduled interview activity, simply toggle on the “Attach a HackerRank Interview” option in the Communications tab. The live interview link will be included in both candidate and interviewer invitations, allowing you to coordinate interviews without manual steps.

Note: The Ashby user’s email must match an active HackerRank account to use this feature.

Settings Update: Enforce Interview Integrity Signals at Company Level

Previously, enabling Interview Integrity Signals required toggles at both the company and individual interviewer levels. Now, visibility is controlled exclusively through company settings for a more streamlined configuration.

The secondary, interviewer-level toggle has been deprecated, giving company admins full control to enforce organizational standards for monitoring suspicious activity during live interviews.

For more information, see Interview Integrity Signals.

Data and Insights

Custom Reports

Custom Reports offer a powerful new way to access, analyze, and share your HackerRank data on demand. This feature gives you full control to build tailored reports across key data objects.

Select the required fields from the following functional areas to build your reports:

You can merge data from multiple entities, apply filters, preview results in real time, and export the report as an Excel file. Saved reports are accessible to all admins and can be duplicated or shared via email for easy collaboration.

Custom Reports are available to company admin users with access to the Insights tab.

For more information, see Create Custom Reports.

Admin

New User Entitlements 

You now have access to a host of new entitlements that help you fine-tune user permissions and ensure the right level of access to match your internal policies—all while keeping candidate and assessment data secure.

You’ll find these new entitlements in Teams Management under the User Roles tab, as well as in individual user entitlements within the Users tab.

Test Editing and Settings 

Company admins can now further fine-tune access using new entitlements that control specific actions in the test creation and management process. The following new entitlements allow you to define what recruiters and other roles can or cannot do:

Adding Questions Outside of Interview Templates

To ensure a consistent and standardized interview experience, Company Admins can now control whether users can add questions outside the assigned interview template. When the 'Add and Remove Questions Outside Assigned Template’ setting is toggled off, interviewers will not be able to deviate from the questions provided.

Prerequisite: To enable this entitlement, the “Conduct Interviews” entitlement must first be enabled.

For more information, see Flexible User Roles.

Bulk Exports

Company admins will now see a new entitlement called “Allow Bulk Exports” under User Roles and the Entitlements tab under each user in Teams Management. The entitlement determines whether the user has access to the following exports:

Prerequisite: To perform an export, a user must have this entitlement enabled and have the necessary base entitlements for the relevant functional areas or access to the specific object. For example, exporting the “My Company” library requires the "View Question Library" entitlement.

For more information, see Allow Bulk Exports.

SkillUp

New Learn Experience

SkillUp has expanded beyond assessments to better support skill development with a more comprehensive learning experience. Earlier versions emphasized hands-on coding assessments with practice questions, timed badges, and certifications. The latest update builds on that foundation by introducing new features designed to help developers actively grow their skills, like learning experiences within the coding environment and an embedded IDE. This shift is rolling out in phases, with a growing number of skills already available in this new format and more planned over the coming quarters.

For more information, see Get Started with Learn.

New Certify Experience

The new SkillUp “Certify” experience provides a structured, supportive journey toward certification, making it easier for developers to go from learning a skill to certifying for a multi-skill role with confidence. This approach helps developers prepare more effectively while giving managers greater confidence in the skills being validated.

For more information, see Get Started with Certify.

Overview Dashboard Enhancements

The updated Overview page provides administrators with a view of upskilling activity across their organization. Designed to support decision-making and progress tracking, the new experience brings clarity to developer engagement and certification outcomes.

For more information, see Track Developer Progress Using Overview Dashboard.

Engage

Build Your Pipeline in Engage

You can now build your candidate pipeline in Engage using three sources:

Rediscover Past Candidates from HackerRank

The new Cohorts tab lets you rediscover candidates from tests created or attempted in the last 90 days. These cohorts are auto-generated and easy to filter by skills, experience level, and match %. Candidates who have scored <75% , candidates with suspicious activity and those in a campaign are excluded by default (you will see an ‘In Campaign’ badge against candidate names if they are already part of a campaign).

Once you’ve selected candidates, click ‘Create Campaign’ and select a relevant campaign to re-engage them. Once the campaign is created, all your past candidates will appear in the Candidates tab with the source marked as ‘HackerRank Test’.

You can also access these cohorts from your HackerRank for Work homepage via the new Rediscover Candidates button.

For more information, see Source and Manage Candidates for Campaign.

Find Candidates from HackerRank’s Database of Candidates

You can now enhance your candidate pipeline by adding candidates from HackerRank’s database to any existing campaign. Go to the Candidates tab of a campaign and click ‘Add Candidates’, then choose ‘Find New Candidates’ to launch the candidate assistant.

The assistant will ask for basic details like skills and location, and show a set of 5 sample candidates. Share feedback to help refine the search. If none of the initial profiles are a fit, you’ll see up to 3 improved rounds of suggestions. Once you're happy with the profiles, you’ll provide final feedback before viewing the full list of candidates to choose from.

Review the suggested profiles, use filters like ‘Match %’ to select relevant candidates and save them to your campaign. These candidates will appear in the list with the source marked as ‘HackerRank Database’.

For more information, see Source and Manage Candidates for Campaign.

Run Promotions in HackerRank Community

You can now boost visibility and attract candidates to your campaigns by promoting them on HackerRank’s 26-million-strong community. 

Set up your promotions under the ‘Outreach’ tab of a campaign by providing key details like title, description and target audience and background colour. Then you can either save it to drafts or publish it. Once published, your promotions are reviewed and published to the community in the next 7 days.

For more information, see Source and Manage Candidates for Campaign.

New Campaign Type: Feature a Job Opportunity

A new "Feature a Job Opportunity" campaign type in Engage allows you to build up your candidate pipeline for your active roles. A new Campaigns tab has been added to view and manage all campaigns in one place.

Simply identify the target audience and select “Feature a job opportunity”, and the Engage Assistant generates a microsite, emails, and potential candidates. You can further customize the microsite and emails, and source candidates just as with a coding challenge campaign. This campaign type also features a unique microsite layout with a dedicated ‘About the Job’ section to highlight role responsibilities, qualifications, and an application link. The microsite is also published on the Homepage and Prepare pages of the HackerRank Community.

For more information, see Create a Campaign, Set Up a Microsite, Set Up Emails, Set Up a Challenge, View Event Statistics.

Developer Community

Mock Interviews

AI-powered mock interviews are now generally available to all developers on the HackerRank Community. These sessions simulate real technical interviews and include several new enhancements:

With over 22,000 mock interviews completed, more developers are gaining realistic practice and building confidence for real-world interviews.

Support for Workable on QuickApply

The QuickApply Chrome extension now supports autofill on Workable-powered job applications, expanding its integration to six major applicant tracking systems: Avature, Greenhouse, Oracle, SmartRecruiter, Workable, and Workday.

Thank you for supporting our mission to change the world to value skills over pedigree. Your feedback continues to drive our innovations forward. If you have questions or need assistance, email support@hackerrank.com or contact your account manager.