It's not the solution itself that is interesting to me, it's first finding out whether the person can go through the motions of solving it. Like reading instruc

It's not the solution itself that is interesting to me, it's first finding out whether the person can go through the motions of solving it. Like reading instructions, submitting solutions etc. It filters out those who can't code at all or who can't read instructions. A surprisingly large chunk. If the person also pipes the problem through an LLM, good. To then select a good developer I'd test communication skills. Have them communicate what the pros/cons of several presented solutions are. And have them critique their own solution. To ensure they don't have canned answers, I might just swap the problem/solutions for the in-person bit. The problem they actually solved and how they did it isn't very important. It's whether they could read and understand the problem, formulate multiple solutions, describe why one would be chosen over another. Being presented with a novel problem and being asked on the spot to analyze it is a good exercise for developers (Assuming software development is the job we're discussing here). Just take the time to talk to people. The job is about reading and writing human language more than computer programming. Especially with the arrival of AI when every junior developer is now micro managing even more junior AI colleagues.