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> We've had existing devs do the take home tests

... and?

Sorry, I realize I never elaborated on the results. Some people could do a reasonable job in 30 minutes, others would take 2 hours (but would be more thorough). Neither end of the spectrum seemed "Too long", and so we thought it is a reasonable ask. It takes the devs that inevitably have to look at this, and potentially run the applicants solution, a chunk of time as well, so it's in our interest to keep it simple.

I wasn't suggesting that we had existing devs do the take home, realize it took 30 hours, and then thought that was a reasonable request :D

Also; on the various lengths and "thoroughness", it's hard to control bias, but we explicitly tell people that this will be used as a jumping off point for discussion. This gives the opportunityfor those who "did less" in terms of thoroughness more opportunity to talk about what they would change/do better if it was to be producitonized etc etc.

The worst case scenario for us is someone who has clearly spent a long time on it, against our wishes, and done a poor job. Optimizing to not have the happen is a comms challenge.

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