>I know HN hates formal certification and licenses, but we really need some kind of reliable credential or signal that a candidate can program up to some very l

>I know HN hates formal certification and licenses, but we really need some kind of reliable credential or signal that a candidate can program up to some very low baseline skill level. Most bachelors degrees in CS from accredited schools are exactly this, regardless of all the smack people talk about new grads. It is rare to see a school teaching CS without a significant programming curriculum. Schools take advice from industry to improve outcomes. If you can't take the word of a long-standing institution that tested an individual for 4 or more years, what kind of certification are you expecting people to get? >I've interviewed people who claimed to be practicing engineers for 5+ years, and had big name companies on their resume, but became lost when asked to write a simple (no trick question) program in a language of their choice. People get nervous, can have a bad day, or be intoxicated. And a significant number of people you're talking to might be overtly lying on their resumes. Your "no trick question" might also just be a bad question: too hard or ambiguous, or very different from what the candidate has seen. Some interviewers are overly confident in their ability to ask relevant and comprehensible questions, or else too particular about what they will accept.