I'm fascinated to see how modern interviews especially those with take-home cope with developments like LLMS. But one thing that probably makes sense is introdu

I'm fascinated to see how modern interviews especially those with take-home cope with developments like LLMS. But one thing that probably makes sense is introducing more ambiguity in the requirements for the candidate. That's what I'll do because we are no longer just testing for technical skills but also judgement, autonomy and good taste. Todays developers are more like builders and to a large extent product developers. The actual software engineering and coding is now a lot less valuable as compared to building something useful within constraints. Anyways, here are my thoughts 1. The interviewee failed to truly appreciate the need for ambiguity. Some people felt the interview was over after the submission of the proposal and I agree with them. Coming up with your own requirements was necessary. And this requires your judgement in determining what was essential or not. This skill is surprisingly rare. 2. Good taste is also now more important than ever. It is also hard to test but the interview questions were really good in that regard. They gave you nudges towards the ideal state and left the door open for you to determine the best "path" towards that goal. This tends to reveal a lot about a developer that they might not even be aware of - like over engineering. For a take home like this, I felt the proposal and the half a dozen AWS services was not in good taste. It was probably more complicated than it needed to be. 3. Deadline and deliverables. Exceeding the deadline is a negative. The final solution is not terminal inspired and those alone may qualify as basis of rejection. 4. Of course the hiring manager should probably have rejected the proposal but will that be fair on other candidates? I also feel giving you access to a hiring manager is a stroke of genius. They can assess you via the kind of questions you asked. And I doubt this candidate asked the "right questions". Right here means that they understood the point of the take-home and also what needed to be built. I didn't get that impression from the candidate. 5. I truly believe take-homes like this should be paid. I just don't know how it might work in the real world or whether they are sustainable. The payment here is just a consolation for those that never make it so that their valuable time will be respected. Even more so because I feel a lot of people will probably diverge from the spirit of the exercise.