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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 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why?

For a technical assessment, you ask few questions to understand past experience and theoretical understanding, few generic tasks to understand style and if they lied on the questions, few design questions.

Over 30h challenge is unfeasible for most jobs for non-junior positions. TBF I believe it is unfair over 30 hours of unpaid work, just to prove me something I can understand in much less time, without wasting their time