Designing a great coding test. How to attract (not repel) top engineers
On Demand
The event
In this session, Neal Kemp walks through the do’s and don’ts of coding tests—arguably the trickiest step in any technical hiring process. Drawing on firsthand experience, Neal shares how to design assessments that are fair, efficient, and effective at revealing who’s truly job-ready.
What you'll learn
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Design for real-world relevance
Test the skills candidates will actually use—no trick questions, obscure algorithms, or memorization. Focus on context, constraints, and decision-making. -
Respect candidate time
Set clear expectations, limit scope to a few hours, and structure take-home projects to reflect realistic workloads. Top developers won’t bother with bloated or unclear challenges. -
Make scoring structured and fair
Avoid subjective judgments by defining clear evaluation guidelines. Review results regularly and improve your challenge based on actual candidate performance.
Hosts
Neal is a seasoned software developer and entrepreneur. He co-founded GovPredict and Women.com, both of which were backed by Y Combinator and were successfully acquired. After GovPredict was acquired, he served as VP of Engineering at Capitol Canary, continuing to build international software teams. He has a BA in Computer Science from Claremont McKenna College.
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