There’s no perfect process for hiring great programmers, but there are plenty of terrible ways to screw it up. We’ve rejected the industry stables of grilling candidates in front of a whiteboard or needling them with brain teasers since the start at Basecamp. But you’re not getting around showing real code when applying for a job here…
So what we’ve started to do instead at Basecamp is level the playing field by asking late-stage candidates to complete a small programming assignment as part of the final evaluation process. I’m going to show you two examples of these projects, and the submissions from the candidates that ended up being hired.
