I have to do many interviews.
I don’t care if the applicant uses AI, or any other tool available to them. I just care about whether they can explain, debug, and modify/extend code (which they wrote, or at least composed somehow and are presenting as their work).
I’ve definitely been suspicious of AI use, and also had some applicants admit to it. And I don’t count that against them any more than using a web resource.
But, there is a very high correlation between using AI and failing at the explain/debug/modify part.
In my current role, I mostly hire “senior” roles. So the applicants (which are pre screened before I see them) typically have 5+ years experience. I ask about the code they’ve written, and then I ask some questions about how they would extend the code (to meet some new requirements). What I’m looking for is not so much a specific answer, but more so “can we think through this problem together.”
That said, I’ve been the interviewer for “junior” roles…and there isn’t as much correlation between ability and experience as you might think. So no reason to feel imposter syndrome. I’ve worked with extremely smart/talented developers without any formal training.
I think all the stuff you’re doing sets a really good foundation for a career in software, if that’s where you want to go. One thing I might suggest is making a few contributions to open source or team projects. It can be useful to learn about how to read code, and present code to others (or to fit your idea into an existing code base).