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Comment by gt5050 | Hacker News Reader

Real time coding interviews are really necessary to avoid hiring people who dont have basic proficiency in coding ( https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/)

The problem given in a coding interview should be a simple one and the candidate should be allowed to choose the solution language.

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A simple homework assignment will do much of the same and allow them to do it at their own pace and having full access to any tool, instead of during some arbitrary time limit with someone else breathing down their neck. Or having to feel guilty about reaching for Stack Overflow and wondering how that would affect their interviewer's opinion of them. Sure they could Google the question but then give them something that requires a litte bit of creativity on their side and ask them to talk through their submission.

In an interview I'm much more interested in hearing how people would structure and architect applications, how they think about and would deal with tech debt, how they'd iterate and improve, how they think about reliability, instrumentation, testing and what not than having them solve a simple question in 30m. I'm not hiring people for a position that boils down to "solve a simple problem in 30m" either.

> A simple homework assignment will do much of the same and allow them to do it at their own pace and having full access to any tool, instead of during some arbitrary time limit with someone else breathing down their neck.

Who is paying for that time?

As someone who has interviewed a lot of people; if I am going to ask someone to perform some coding, I offer them the fact that my entire TEAM (5+ people) will be there for them to ask questions of.

That is us being serious about hiring. It isn't just a single person who is interviewing - but a large amount of the engineering team.

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