[908B64B197]

> We're having a bit of a debate about this internally as the company I work for is struggling to hire good candidates.

What's the compensation like? Stock?

> For a while we've had a take-home test and that has increased our success rate somewhat. But as you say, we really don't want to lay unreasonable expectations on people who may have other obligations

You'll also find out that the people you really want to hire are not on the market for a long time. So if they are interviewing at several places and you give them a 4 hours take-home, they'll put it on their to-do list but by the time they get to it they might be in the final rounds at 2-3 other places that brought them on-site immediately.

> It probably doesn't help that management here is almost entirely non-technical

That's a much bigger issue than most assume.

> There's usually a developer or two sitting in on the interview to try and balance it out

That's a huge no from me. Final approval of a technical candidate should only be in the hands of the technical staff.

I've heard horror story of a "senior" engineer from "his country's top school" being interviewed for a technical position by several non-technical managers and HR reps. They only included an engineer in the final round, which was basically supposed to be rubberstamped anyways. He was then asked to implement something trivial like fizzbuzz or wordcount on the whiteboard. The candidate then became extremely defensive and tried to argue that such task was "beneath him", arguing for a good 15 minutes why he shouldn't have to do it.

Then the dev just left the room and said that he used this question as a warmup with new hires and it typically takes them less than 10 minutes.

[elanning]

A lot of senior engineers would refuse to do a fizzbuzz. I'm really not seeing the problem here.

[fbleibel]

On the contrary, I think this is a huge red flag. Just go along with the interviewer, maybe highlight that this is typically and entry-level problem, but solve it. You really don't want to hire someone who not only can't solve fizzbuzz, but also refuses to hear about it and complain that it's 'beneath them' (what a annoying attitude!).

[not2b]

Depends. It could be an indication that there's been a miscommunication and the interview is for a much more junior position than expected, so I would expect a more senior person to push back. Fizzbuzz tests "can this person program at all?" For a more senior position, best to start with something harder and more job-related; back off to fizzbuzz if the interviewee can't do the hard stuff.

[908B64B197]

FizzBuzz typically gets raised eyebrows from folks who never had to do it because they assume there's a trick somewhere. It can't just be a one-liner they assume.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

[jpetso]

Of course it's not, there's always a better way: https://joelgrus.com/2016/05/23/fizz-buzz-in-tensorflow/

[908B64B197]

100% of those who can't code would refuse it indeed!

[elanning]

Imagine you're a senior developer with over 10 years experience. You're happily employed and make good money. You're contacted by a recruiter for an interview. Perhaps the company even uses some software you wrote.

"Ok this problem is called fizzbuzz. We just need to see if you can really code."

It sounds like the situation was of course different, but situations like above have happened.

[908B64B197]

I don't need to imagine it: It happened.

I laughed and wrote the solution on the board.