[lbriner]

We don't use coding tests in this way. We use coding tests as a screening process to ensure the candidate is in the correct ballpark.

If we are recruiting a senior, we would expect them to easily complete basic technical tests. If they are more junior we might use them only as an indicator of their ability.

I don't particularly expect a strong correlation between how well they did in the tests and their long-term ability since their value is made up of many things, only one of which is their ability in the tests.

[meheleventyone]

Do you do it for the interview process as a whole?

[lbriner]

Yes. I think we all know that interviews are not perfect so we won't be overly strict on anything. Do we think they will get on with others? As long as they are not a definite "no" then that's fine. Do they seem interested in the company? Same thing.

There is only time I was still unsure and didn't want to waste the candidates time so rather than telling him sorry, I set him a paid coding test to develop a microservice in order to judge his style, how long he took, what questions he asked etc. I didn't think the result was good enough but because we paid him, we parted on good terms and he had some good feedback.

[rednerrus]

We do this. We have a scale of how in-depth we expect people to get based on their level. We ask candidates questions about specific projects they've worked on and we ask them to be more specific until we feel we have a good understanding of how deep and wide their understanding is. We dig deeper for more senior folks. It seems to work pretty well.