My current company used a "homework assignment" and they bought a lot of my trust with it.
1. The "assignment" took me about 4 hours, which they expected and told me off the bat.
2. It involved mostly relevant code with 1-2 wrinkles that were not odd just not everyday sorts of things.
For the proceeding interview, I was able to sit with 3-4 engineers for 1-2 hours really just diving into details about my experience and their processes, etc.
So if I could offer advice it would be to find a "homework problem" your existing crew could build independently in 4 hours or so. As in you've actually had more than 1 team member attempt the request, and they did it in about 4 hours each.
This was actually an interview process I didn't mind. I have 15-ish years of experience doing development. I can spare half a day for a prospect no problem. It was actually kind of fun.
4 hours seems to be a good "sweet spot". You can ask something sufficiently technical and oriented to the daily work without being a bore. And when the interview comes around, you can make sure it's not some ego-bound contest, more of a conversation.
1. The "assignment" took me about 4 hours, which they expected and told me off the bat. 2. It involved mostly relevant code with 1-2 wrinkles that were not odd just not everyday sorts of things.
For the proceeding interview, I was able to sit with 3-4 engineers for 1-2 hours really just diving into details about my experience and their processes, etc.
So if I could offer advice it would be to find a "homework problem" your existing crew could build independently in 4 hours or so. As in you've actually had more than 1 team member attempt the request, and they did it in about 4 hours each.
This was actually an interview process I didn't mind. I have 15-ish years of experience doing development. I can spare half a day for a prospect no problem. It was actually kind of fun.
4 hours seems to be a good "sweet spot". You can ask something sufficiently technical and oriented to the daily work without being a bore. And when the interview comes around, you can make sure it's not some ego-bound contest, more of a conversation.