this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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How to make a coding challenge to hire a new engineer? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by hi65435@discuss.tchncs.de to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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We're a very small team with little experience in hiring but got approval for a new engineer. Basically HR will look for people through the usual channels and I think we have a reasonably good job description. Unfortunately the coding challenge (a 30h+ take home) is atrociously difficult and doesn't really reflect what we do. On the other hand I think the false positive rate would be low. FWIW it's a Linux application and it might be difficult to only count on experience from the CV.

Any ideas how to build a good challenge from scratch and what time constraints are reasonable?

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[–] funbike@programming.dev 13 points 1 year ago

You will lose the best candidates with an onerous coding challenge.

Our process, which has been heavily influenced by debate on r/experiencedevs on reddit involves a short phone screen, a 30 MINUTE coding challenge, a tech interview consisting of pair programming, and a non-tech interview with management. Very light.

The coding challenge is a FILTER only. It's not to evaluate who to hire, but instead it's to filter who not to continue interviewing.

You learn a lot during pair programming in a short period of time, including personality and team fit. We let them drive and we just watch and discuss. The assignment is to fix a bug, and refactor the code the caused the bug.