[raygelogic]

this comment misses the point and is why we don't give take-home work to senior developer candidates. they are in high demand and will not spend their free time on homework, when many other companies will gladly hire them without making them jump through hoops.

[PurpleBoxDragon]

I've seen companies hire truly awful senior developers who ended up costing the company quite a lot after they were fired and the entire search had to begin again 3 months later. If the position is in high demand, you still need to gate it to make sure you get a decent chance at a good hire.

Also, I highly suspect companies who are having trouble hiring senior devs are having issues stemming from not paying enough for their given situation.

[sushid]

You’re making it sound like any alternative to a take home project will increase hiring risks.

Companies like Square and Stripe have project-centered rounds during their onsite that allows them to assess these skills without giving a take home.

[ghaff]

Furthermore, just because you can bang out something in an hour or two doesn't mean that you will spend only an hour or two when you know you'll be competing against people who put a lot of effort into the task.

In my case, I do a lot of writing these days and, if someone were to ask me to write a thousand word analysis on some topic I was familiar with, I certainly could knock that off in a few hours. But, assuming I agreed to do it at all as part of the interview process--I'd be far more inclined to just give them a bunch of links to my work--I'm going to put the effort in to come up with a tight, polished product.

[MattHeard]

Given that job searching is often a numbers game, a one-hour homework assignment is a lot of work when multiplied over dozens (or 100+) applications.

[mcv]

That's why it shouldn't be the first step of the interview process, but it's totally fine as the last step. When the hiring party thinks: "we want this candidate if they're as good as they seem to be", then it's a good time to have a look at their code.

[PurpleBoxDragon]

Is it really normal for a developer to need to apply to that many positions to find a decent match? I've only ever done a dozen or so at once, and each one I spend a decent amount of time researching the company for tailoring a cover page (if they accept them) or for the interview. I find those making the hiring decisions are quite impressed by candidates who have done their homework (and more than once I've made the hiring manager a bit worried about how I found so much information just through google searches; they don't realize how much their employees let leak through Linked In resumes and such).

[mcv]

As a senior developer I have no problem with take-home work. Obviously I won't do it for just any job or project; I'm picky and I'm looking for something special. If I find something that seems to meet my criteria, I'm not going to dismiss it just because they give me take-home work. In fact, I like them because they give me insight into the sort of problems I may have to solve there, and it lets me show what I can do.

I'm not going to jump through stupid hoops, but I love jumping through interesting hoops.

[gortok]

I only see two possibilities:

1. Require developers to code on demand during an interview (personally, I have a hard time with this; the pressure of an interview is not a normal working situation).

2. Allow someone to do it on their own time, under no time pressure. (I advocate paying them for their time at a fair market rate).

Do you see another way of a senior developer demonstrating their abilities without hitting either of the two above?

[ryandrake]

Ask the candidate to thoroughly review code during the interview and offer insight. See if they can spot undefined behavior, if they can improve an already-good solution, and ask what their approach would be to refactor it. If they are truly senior programmers, their actual job will be reviewing more than they write anyway, and you’re not hiring them for their ability to crank out a quicksort implementation.

For the junior folks, sure: have them burn through homework.

[bytematic]

And yet 5 interviews per company still occurs commonly