> Take-home technical assignment (~4h) or similar at candidate's choosing If I can get a similarly-paying job at a place that doesn't do this, I'll skip you. Many seniors ( actual seniors, not 3-years-of-experience seniors) have a network and can say "hey I'm looking" and instantly have multiple options that won't have them do more than talk to the team and manager for an hour or two. If that.
I think I might (for non-network referrals) respond with "my hourly rate is $XX". Has anyone done this? Has it worked? PS - I also try to add on a 30m review of /their/ code, but so far it hasn't worked. I still ask!
However asking to see some examples of their real code/documentation is a legitimate request IMHO and something I did in my later interviews when I was working as an employee. I'd usually bring it up at a second interview when we knew both sides were serious and they asked if there was anything I'd like to know more about. Nowhere ever thought it was an unreasonable request in my experience and some took it as a good sign that I was sincerely interested. Probably the majority of places actually did find something I could look at, though some refused and usually cited something like confidentiality or trade secrets. Of course the ones who showed me good code were more likely to get me to work for them than the ones who refused or showed me bad code.