Having been in the same boat, the take-home problem is... too much. If you show you don't respect the time of your candidates (4 hours of unpaid work is not res

Having been in the same boat, the take-home problem is... too much. If you show you don't respect the time of your candidates (4 hours of unpaid work is not respecting someone's time), they're not going to be interested. I would try to keep any sort of technical white-board interview or take-home problem small enough that it can be done in under an hour, 15 minutes for a truly experienced engineer.