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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 [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] Zeth0s 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You should recognize a good engineer by asking to create a class, a function, to design a simple application, and how to use find -exec. That's less than half an hour and you are done. Longer than that, no true good senior will apply

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Recognizing class/functions/basic functions is not a criterion for a good engineer, it's a criterion for any developer. Not saying it's bad to check that... In fact yes, quiet a bit bad. Nowadays there is google to help you understand how to use find; you don't need to know by heart how it works, and maybe you are a good engineer that can find how to use that with man or internet in a short time.

Ask him also a relatively hard problem (easy to understand though). Not something to code particularly, but a problem to see how he process it, how he's thinking about it, what will he look for in the project, what questions will he ask you about the problem.

It will not take more than 10-15minutes, and you can easily pick who will be able to Engineer a solution (=> think about it, how it works, how it interacts) from people that can output code that works but need someone else to give them detailed instructions to be able to work.

[–] Zeth0s 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is exactly what I am saying, you don't need a 30+h coding challenge. Good questions to understand theoretical understanding, style, practical experience, software design, and few quick technical assessment tests to confirm they didn't lie, over few key basic tasks, those that one should know without googling, and that can show coding style and quality.

I believe 30+h of unpaid work are unfair just to prove me something I can understand with less effort on their side