My employer carved out a standalone PHP script from a dark corner of a legacy application years ago. We show it to candidates and talk through what they'd do di

My employer carved out a standalone PHP script from a dark corner of a legacy application years ago. We show it to candidates and talk through what they'd do differently. I like it because I can judge not just the candidate's technical competence, but their level as well. If you're a junior, I can see if you have an eye for detail and pick up on the database query with a syntax error or mistyped variable name. If you're more senior, you'll tell me about job queues and workers. I had one candidate start with "the problem is the management structure that allowed this to happen in the first place". I have plenty of leading questions for candidates who are hesitant to criticize our code, and will tear it to pieces in front of them if necessary. And no, most importantly, it's not a take-home exam.