I have been interviewing senior engineers extensively for the last few months while also interviewing at other companies so I have seen the process from both si

I have been interviewing senior engineers extensively for the last few months while also interviewing at other companies so I have seen the process from both sides. Different companies handle interviews in their own way but I know exactly why interviewers ask the questions they do. Coding tests are an important part of the interview, you would be surprised how many senior software engineers have been in de facto management or very specialized positions for 7 years and no longer know how to code. We are not asking anyone to implement a red-black tree off the top of their heads, just very simple stuff. I think this is important but anything more than a 20 minute question will not help further gauge a candidate. We tend to not put too much weight on the coding test since some very good people have trouble thinking on their feet under pressure. We also recently started also asking for a simple homework assignment that tests basic data structures and general C++ knowledge. It should take between 2-4 hours. Personally I hate homework and resisted introducing it but a well designed exercise is great for separating out the wheat from the chaff and allows a really great candidate to show some flair with a clever algorithm or even just nicely formatted code. I would now recommend it. I was asked to do an assignments during my job search and typically spent 3-4 hours on them. I've heard of companies asking for days worth of work - that is completely unfair. Finally, you would be surprised at how much outright fraud goes on, particularly with junior candidates lying on their resumes. We have had people on Skype interviews blatantly cheating to the extent that one candidate was just moving their mouth while someone else off-camera was speaking for them. "Mr Ed" did not get the job. I ranted about the interview process last year[0] but now I am a little more mellow now. [0] https://sheep.horse/2016/10/so_you_want_me_to_hire_you_as_a_c++_developer.html https://sheep.horse/2016/10/so_you_want_me_to_hire_you_as_a_...