[mattbrewsbytes]

I applied a few months ago to a position at Spreedly and welcomed the code sample process. It is only one part of their hiring process, like the article mentioned. I loved getting feedback on the results too, it turned out someone had a better score and that's ok, I knew exactly why and actually learned something about that problem. Most jobs you apply for and don't get you just hear deafening silence back.

It also gives you an idea of what the company focuses on - delivering working software. I'm not saying companies that don't do work samples don't focus on that but as a candidate it makes you wonder if playing games is part of the job. You gotta talk about real code, look at real code and discuss it.

I have also been a manager and sat on the other side of the hiring table and it is hard to judge the technical chops of people. We used quizzes of deep technical items that should have been known by someone if they had done the work before (e.g. MTU settings for a db cluster) and that helped weed out people but it really wouldn't give a sense of if they were a 100% good fit, you need other ways to check that too.

I like the analogy of developers to chefs and cooking. Programming puzzles is like judging a chef on cute tricks to slice an onion. Would you hire a chef based on their onion slicing tricks or their ability to cook an amazing meal?