On Take-Home Coding Assignments

Disclaimer: this piece is a rework of this Twitter thread of mine from 2021, in an effort to move meaningful content out of Twitter. It was edited, softened and actualized for the 2026 landscape. In this article, I’ll use take-home/coding/technical assignment/challenge/test/exercise interchangeably to refer to the interview step where candidates are asked to produce code or a small project on their own time. Overview Interviewing for a job is stressful enough. Then come the dreaded coding challenge or take-home test. The shape and flavor vary from company to company, but at the end of the day, it’s homework given by the potential employer to evaluate the candidate’s technical skills. Opinions on the validity and benefits of this exercise vary wildly, and there are certainly pros and cons for doing — or deliberately avoiding — coding exercises. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this as a hiring manager, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: for most engineering roles,…