Lots of great stuff here but let me underline this bit: I think less of teams that propose short contracting projects to candidates to try them out, because I

Lots of great stuff here but let me underline this bit: I think less of teams that propose short contracting projects to candidates to try them out, because I would never agree to interview on those terms. Amen. "Contractor for two weeks" and "full-time employee for the first two weeks of a years-long job" are fundamentally different positions. They require different sorts of deliverable [1], different contracts, different social positioning relative to the team and the company [2], and (of course) different pay rates. To pretend that one of these positions is a special case of the other invites trouble. I'd say more but your earlier post said it better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4559389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4559389 --- [1] My rule of thumb is not to accept a "contracting" gig, even a "temporary" one, that doesn't have more specific deliverables than "show up and work X hours per week while looking competent". Work that is measured only in hours is not contracting: It's employment with additional risks and no benefits. [2] The team knows what a contractor is, and they know what a full-fledged fellow employee is, but the arrival of someone who is neither fish nor fowl tends to sow hesitancy and suspicion. I've seen what happens with "probationary" employees: The label never quite fades away. I remember one fellow who turned out to be a real star: At company parties people would say things like "hey, I remember when we hired X even though we were worried about his experience level, but he turned out to be really great!" This always struck me as a painfully barbed form of praise. Hire like you mean it. When you add someone to the team, add them to the team.