What are full stack interviews like these days?
So I was recently laid off lol and I'm feeling a bit lost in regards to how I should be prepping for interviews now that we're in this age of AI. I have 5 YOE at 2 companies and my prior experience interviewing and getting an offer looked like the following:
2021: Entry level front end role right out of college at a large consulting company. Technical round with Leetcode medium type questions and behavioral vibe check round that felt way more important.
2023: Mid level full stack role with a smaller company. Single round interview with very sparse technical discussion and zero leetcode type anything, and seemed to be more about my prior experience combined with how I made a mock project using the same stack as their site. Oh yeah and also, I feel like the whole thing was a vibe check and that none of that other stuff would've mattered if I didn't pass that.
My dilemma now though, is that I feel so ingrained into the specific work that I was doing on a specific stack, in specific ways, for an app for a specific industry, etc. that I feel so disconnected from the more generic type of skills that employers are looking for when interviewing. I know that there's probably some imposter syndrome going on here, and I really do believe that I can thrive in these roles, adapt to any new codebases/stacks, and figure out solutions for whatever could be thrown at me, but I feel like that really only matters after I've actually accepted an offer.
So really I'm just wanting to hear from people here about their experiences in say the past 2 years or so, since AI coding has been in full swing. A part of me wants to ignore AI entirely, but I honestly think it played a role in my recent layoff so I feel like I need to be leveraging it to show employers that it can't replace me. And at this point I think we're way past the point of AI assistants writing sloppy/unmaintainable code, at least when they're being used by an already skilled and experienced developer.
Are fundamentals even that important these days? Should I focus on overall system design instead of building apps and their features from scratch? What exactly makes a web dev stand out these days?
My current idea that I'm working on for an interview I have coming up is learning the ins and outs about the company app I would be working on, and creating a mock project somewhat simulating it, except with improved performance, workflows, UI, etc. as well as new features that I think could bring business value or improve the user experience.