I recommend taking a problem you or someone on your team recently solved and distill out any internal-specific parts of the problem. Expect a candidate to take

I recommend taking a problem you or someone on your team recently solved and distill out any internal-specific parts of the problem. Expect a candidate to take 3x the time it takes you to complete the assignment. If you want an assignment that should take them around 2 hours, give yourself 40 minutes to complete it. If you can't complete it in time, you need to cut the scope of the problem. This works really well for in-person technical questions (live coding or design). I've vetted this over hundreds of candidates at this point. It has been years since I've given a take-home assignment, but the same basic rules apply.