Which do you choose? The one who interviews better, and who sounds like they'd be a better fit for the team. If one of them has been learning the things the te

Which do you choose? The one who interviews better, and who sounds like they'd be a better fit for the team. If one of them has been learning the things the team uses then that will shine through on their technical interview and coding test. If they've been learning something that's not used then it won't make any difference and won't put them any further ahead than the candidate who spent their spare time doing other things. Anecdotally, and this is just me rather than something that applies broadly in tech, but I don't want people on my team to work (or learn, or whatever) 16 hours a day. I want to work with people who are fun, interesting, and have interests outside of just working all the time. There's few things I find more tiresome on a Monday morning than when the PM asks "how was your weekend?" having someone on the team who never has anything to contribute. Those people are boring, and they make the rest of the team less willing to engage with one another. Coding is a team sport. If you're doing your best work on your own at 2am learning something new then you will not do well in many companies.