> As an interviewer homework loops are easier for you.
I have been on both the interviewee and interviewer side of this interview style, and I speak from both perspectives when I say that like this style.
> You don't have to actually confront a human being in front of you, understand the thought-process they went through in doing the work, answer questions about yourself, projects, or the company. You can say no by typing a bit.
Are you assuming that the homework is the only part of the interview process? That's absurd. Once they complete the assignment (which should be an objective thing to assess with practically unambiguous criteria) they are brought in to an interview. If they did a good job on the homework, they'll likely get the job. I would rather not ask them to take time out of their workday for their current employer until I think there's a good chance we will extend them an offer.
The interview is exactly what you describe: a chance for them to evaluate me, for us to have a discussion about their thought process regarding their code, about their prior experience, etc.
> You've taken all of the leverage and one-sided information, given nothing to the candidate
Not sure what you are mean exactly here.
> and you expect them to be okay with this without payment.
I also expect them to send me a resume without payment, and people can easily take as much time editing and formatting their resume as they do on the coding assignment.
I'm not categorically opposed to the idea of paying candidates who submit a (correct) solution to the homework assignment. That seems like a nice gesture. It just wasn't an idea that ever came up in discussion, and in retrospect doesn't really seem like it was necessary.
Honest question: If you were to get paid for a completed homework assignment, would all of your objections go away?
> Good candidates, myself included, will not jump through arbitrary hoops or suffer such foolery.
We had some really good candidates (and hires) using this process, but nice No True Scotsman.
> I have ample github history, 15 years of senior-level experience with good companies, and the ability to discuss solutions at every level in a tech-stack.
Good for you.
For every candidate, I would always assess the homework assignment before looking at their resume, or even seeing their name. I wanted to have it be as much of a "blind audition" as possible. We brought in people with weak homework assignments and strong resumes, and people with strong homework assignments and weak resumes (and other combinations). While not a huge sample size, the experience of myself and others on my team was that a strong homework assignment was a better predictor of a good interview and job performance than a strong resume.
> I will not coderpad on my own or do unpaid homework. I will pair-program for an hour with an agreeable potential-colleague, but not with somebody who's hiring for other teams.
If that's your preference, that's fine. As professionals in the same industry who both in good faith want to improve the state of interviewing, we can discuss the trade-offs between homework and pair-programming.
But let's not pretend there are no trade-offs. Time-boxed live programming interviews favor people who are good at working under pressure and who are already familiar the the technical stack. They filter out people who may be great engineers but are more deliberative or come from a different tech stack.