The dispassionate developer

You make it sound so smooth

A lot of senior engineers would refuse to do a fizzbuzz. I'm really not seeing the problem here.

There's "passion" and there's "professionalism". I would categorise many of the activities you mention under the latter. Passion isn't the only reason to try to be good at what you do and get ahead. Pride, ambition, a sense of responsibility, etc. are all good reasons too, and it's easier to associate them with surgeons and judges. "Passion" is just a bit of a weird word to use when it comes to such work, maybe because it's often associated with creative endeavours.

Our take-home obviously isn't a trade secret, so we have three trivial problems in ours:

1. Write code that takes in a rectangle, coordinate, and distance, and tells if that coordinate is within the distance of the rectangle.

2. Determine whether a string has permutations which are palindromes. (I'm of the opinion this one is too simple, but it's been fascinating seeing what mental gymnastics some developers will go through to solve this problem)

3. Write a CLI dice game (we provide the rules) in which the computer player wins 70% of the time. Make the method by which the computer cheats undetectable (of course this is impossible, but candidates just give it a best shot and we talk about their approach in the interview).

Assuming the test passes muster, we have three interviews right now, I think. One with managers to talk about the role, one with senior devs outside the team to perform the technical interview, and one with the devs in the team to talk shop.

In the technical interview, we primarily go through their test solutions (we do no whiteboard coding aside from reviewing the test and even that's very loose - not actual code). We have hired candidates before who have failed some of these tasks (mainly our candidates have trouble with #1) but who showed a capacity for being able to think on their feet and correct their mistakes during the interview. Of course a candidate who aces the test is going to have an advantage, but absent having the right answers, quick thinking/adaptability is probably the #2 trait we look for that seems to be a good predictor for developer success.

Every candidate we've hired through our process has been a success (which could be dumb luck, since none of us are super experienced/knowledgeable interviewers either, but we wing it best we can) and the take-home (and, equally importantly, the technical interview) has absolutely helped us weed out candidates with impressive CVs whose test results did not measure up.

This reminds me of the parable of the Mexican fisherman and the Harvard MBA:

'An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed. “I have an MBA from Harvard, and can help you,” he said. “You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middle-man, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You could control the product, processing, and distribution,” he said. “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “Oh, 15 to 20 years or so.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time was right, you would announce an IPO, and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you could retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”'