Sprend’s technical challenge is actually a cooperation test
Algorithmic puzzles have their place, but they don't tell us how we'll work together. Here is why our final interview revolves around a real-world bug, and why we are really just answering one question: ‘Do we enjoy working together?’
If you are an experienced developer, you've likely gone through your fair share of technical tests. While whiteboard algorithms and generic take-home assignments can be useful for establishing a baseline of knowledge, they often miss the most important part of senior engineering: the day-to-day reality of the job.
At Sprend, we take a different approach.
If you’ve made it past our agency partners and their rigorous (?) DNA screening – which you can read about in How we partner with agencies – I already know you can write code. My final test is about something much deeper: Can we solve real problems together, and do we actually enjoy the process?
The Sprend Challenge
When we reach the final stage of our hiring process, which takes a couple of days, we invite you into our actual world. I will give you a real bug that currently exists (or recently existed) in the Sprend codebase. (If you want a head start on what you'll be looking at, check out The Sprend tech stack).
Your task is practical:
- Set up the local development environment.
- Reproduce the bug.
- Solve it.
- Step through the code with me and explain your fix.
What I'm actually testing
Yes, I want to see how you navigate an unfamiliar codebase. But the code is secondary. What I am really testing is your communication.
When you hit a roadblock setting up the environment, do you silently struggle for hours, or do you ask a sharp, targeted question? When you step through the JavaScript with me, can you articulate your thought process clearly? When we debate a different approach to the fix, can we do it with low ego and high standards?
This test is a two-way street. It is your opportunity to look under the hood of Sprend. You get to (some of) the codebase, and how I communicate as a founder and fellow developer. It’s a mutual audition.
Iron sharpens iron
I’ve been in this industry long enough to know a universal truth: Great developers don’t want to work for managers; they want to work with other great developers. I realise that if I am going to ask you to treat testing as non-negotiable, to dig for the absolute root cause of a bug, and to communicate transparently, I have to prove to you that I do the exact same thing.
When you join the Sprend team, you are not joining an assembly line. You are joining a partnership. This mutual audition is how we ensure you'll succeed in our culture – to understand the full philosophy behind this, I recommend reading about being a developer at Sprend.
What you can expect from me:
- I will pair program with you. Not to micromanage, but for problems that benefit from doubling up on engineering power.
- I will shield you from artificial urgency. I meant it when I said we have a ‘no-deadlines’ culture. I will never ask you to push garbage code just to hit an arbitrary launch date.
- I will leave my ego at the door. If your pragmatic technology choice is better than mine, yours wins.
- I will obsess over the user with you. We leave the codebase cleaner than we found it, every single day. If you are a developer who takes immense pride in your work, who wants to understand exactly what is going on, and who wants to work alongside someone who feels the exact same way – we should talk.
- I will generate images with Gemini. But only funny ones.
