Sounds like it might be the same company the author is referring to. I'll throw them under the bus. Hello Fresh interviewed me and that interview went fine. The

Sounds like it might be the same company the author is referring to. I'll throw them under the bus. Hello Fresh interviewed me and that interview went fine. They then wanted me to deliver an application using no framework. I was allowed to use libraries, but no framework. After reviewing the requirements I quickly determined that it would take me days to build an application that I felt would effectively WOW them. I told that to the recruiter and bowed out. Being already employed I looked at the opportunity cost and it was too high. Sure they paid more and are a bigger company, but that is A LOT of work. I rather do almost anything than unpaid programming on an application that will be thrown away in a few days. If I were hiring, the "lab" portion of the interview would be simple. For mid to senior level developer: 1. Write a small inefficient application that requires some indexes, SQL optimization, and some code optimization. Very, very small. Very, very easy for a reasonable developer to fix. Afterwards I'd have a conversation about other general optimization things like Redis, Beanstalkd etc... because we'll optimization is important, especially to me. 2. A small class with very poor cyclomatic complexity. Clean it up. Because clean code is important. 3. A small insecure application. Things like not using bind parameters in queries, not cleaning inputs, XSS etc.. Secure it. 4. Show me something you've done. Personal or professional. I would then ask questions and it would be an open conversation. Because I want to see how much you enjoy programming and how we'll you can speak about it. I think these 3 items, combined with the other interview questions, their experience, and resume would give me enough to go off. Ideally, 1, 2 & 3 can be done in under an hour. I think that is reasonable for pre-screaning an applicant. I certainly wouldn't send me running, but I am also writing the test so who knows... Why would I want to look through 10 or so applicants full fledged application? God no. I have better things to do. I guess for some companies its a way of weeding people out, but these large tests are akin to using DDT to remove weeds.