We’re a very small team with little experience in hiring but got approval for a new engineer. Basically HR will look for people through the usual channels and I think we have a reasonably good job description. Unfortunately the coding challenge (a 30h+ take home) is atrociously difficult and doesn’t really reflect what we do. On the other hand I think the false positive rate would be low. FWIW it’s a Linux application and it might be difficult to only count on experience from the CV.
Any ideas how to build a good challenge from scratch and what time constraints are reasonable?
This is exactly what I am saying, you don’t need a 30+h coding challenge. Good questions to understand theoretical understanding, style, practical experience, software design, and few quick technical assessment tests to confirm they didn’t lie, over few key basic tasks, those that one should know without googling, and that can show coding style and quality.
I believe 30+h of unpaid work are unfair just to prove me something I can understand with less effort on their side