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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[–] hi65435@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 year ago

Good point, I fully agree with you. Didn't come up with it myself but it has been used for years already but I think HR also complained about it.

Actually I did the challenge a year ago and it was only circumstantial that I didn't decline. Yet, we need a good replacement for the challenge (or the whole interview process) because most of the workload is on me at the moment.