Reading the comments here has me horrified... At what point did programming exercises during interviews for programming roles become anything more than a litmu

Reading the comments here has me horrified... At what point did programming exercises during interviews for programming roles become anything more than a litmus test to weed out fraudsters early in the process? It's not supposed to be an unpaid hazing ritual, don't turn it into one. We're talking about technical engineering positions here folks. Once you've filtered out the frauds have a technical deep-dive conversation with the person that is germane to the role and their CV. You need to vet their communication and collaboration abilities and fit anyways. A take-home exercise doesn't produce any of that information. It's _deep_ in diminishing returns land vs. having them spit out a toy program from blank slate -> executable in a few minutes. If they struggle with that, you likely have a fraud, end the process, NEXT. There's a reason a month would pass before benefits kick in; it's enough time to see if they can do the actual job and get along with everyone.