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How to make a coding challenge to hire a new engineer? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/experienced_devs

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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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[–] JackbyDev 9 points 2 years ago

Time constraints should be 1 hour maximum and it should be a pair programming thing done over webcam. Why? I refuse to do "take home" assignments. They take far too long (even if it is only 30 minutes) and there's no guarantee that anyone will look at it. Don't waste your candidate's time. You're going to push good candidates away doing this.