[alexyang21]

I think most 2-4 hour take-homes can be condensed to 1-2 hours with some thoughtful choices. A few ideas I've used:

- Provide starter code and setup instructions so candidates don't waste time on boilerplate.

- Abbreviate requirements to what actually matters. E.g. do you really need 100% test coverage on a take-home? Ask candidates to write a few tests and then tell you what else they'd do given more time.

- Use an open-ended, time-boxed format instead of having end-to-end expectations. IMO a hybrid format where a short (1 hr) take-home is followed by a live discussion/pairing afterward can be the core component of a hiring process.

I'd love to hear more about the Ramp process. Do you mind sharing what sort of practical problems they used?

[noisenotsignal]

I interviewed for a backend role and the problems were greatly simplified versions of day-to-day backend SWE work. For example, use a server to complete a task. The focus was on how you make the requests and handle any edge cases that might come up, and the server was actually live so you could tinker and get immediate feedback. Hopefully that’s not too vague :)

Edit: to be clear, the interview was live with an interviewer. So it wasn’t a take home in the scheduling sense either.

I agree that take homes can be simplified with your suggestions above, and that certainly makes a better experience for the candidate. The hybrid format is also great - future interviews become an extension of your previous work, so it’s more comfortable than having to context switch for a new challenging problem each round.

I didn’t find this in your linked database, but I also enjoyed GitHub’s take home. I only recall spending 45-90 minutes on it, and the setup process was seamless. A recent blog post describes their approach here: https://github.blog/2022-03-31-how-github-does-take-home-tec...

[alexyang21]

Yes! I spoke to Andy (the author of the article you linked) when he posted this. I'm a big fan of this approach. And the software we're building is quite similar to the interview-bot one that GitHub uses internally. Why shouldn't every eng team be able to benefit from tools like theirs?

I'd love to add GitHub's take-home to the library, but I feel the article describes the exercise without sharing the actual prompt. If there's a public link to it, lmk and I'll add it.

[noisenotsignal]

You’re right, I don’t think their exercise is public. I just wasn’t sure if you knew about it and felt it was good enough to call out.

This is awesome to hear! I did check out your website but wasn’t sure how closely it tracked with the GitHub method.

Honestly, I had a thought to build something like this after my GitHub interview but wasn’t sure how much traction it would get. It’s cool that you’re working on it and that my random thought was validated; best of luck!