I wish there was a way to scale the "add feature to FOSS project we use" thing. Scale is a concern here because I see this exercise being doled out more than a

I wish there was a way to scale the "add feature to FOSS project we use" thing. Scale is a concern here because I see this exercise being doled out more than a few times, which means that every instance must involve someone deciding what features should be added. There's also a limit to how much can be added to the same handful of projects over time. Can't ask all candidates to add the same feature over and over, or else this becomes throwaway code as well, which doesn't address any of the valid negatives you've raised. > I know within an hour or so of talking to somebody if I want to work with them Ha ha! I've had an HR department at a BigCorp tell me that there was a minimum duration to each interview (30 minutes for phone screen, at least 45 but preferably an hour for in-person), regardless of how they were doing. Their thinking was that more time spent by us would cause the candidate to consider us a more desirable employer. You can imagine my anguish at having to speak endlessly with people who would clearly never cut it on my team. "But you can't just walk them out after an hour!"