It's also worth thinking about the timeline inclusive of hiring delay. More detailed requirements makes hiring slower.
I know 2 startups both hiring their first set of non-founder engineers.
One startup took 4 months to hire 2 senior engineers who weren't in their stack and then gave both of them about a month to come up to speed on the tech. Literally running tutorials.
So 5 months in, they have two onboarded senior engineers.
The other startup is 6 months in and hasn't made either hire. They see deep experience in their tech stack as required and don't want to wait longer for onboarding.
But in retrospect, they would have gotten to an onboarded team faster if they had hired like the first company.
The more the company sees developers as a cost center (e.g. legacy companies who put developers in the IT org), the more they're looking for specific technologies.
"I need a dev with 7 years of Spring Bott!"
The more the company sees developers as a crucial input to innovation and building a more valuable company, the more the emphasis is on capabilities.
"I need a senior developer that's great at solving problems. I don't care what tech stack"
But in the second case, a core capability needs to be passing a typical developer interview. So you'll need to practice writing code in a time limit with someone watching you. You'll also need to practice designing a system.
^ it is dumb that this capability matters, but it's the reality today. There are some companies that interview differently where you actually build real-world things without someone looking over your shoulder, but it's not the norm yet.
Written, async interviews give candidates who are better at the job an advantage from those who are just better at schmoozing and exaggerating their resume.
So a C+ for effort, but this is a great example of what NOT to do.
1- This is hiring by committee. They sent out a call for questions to a bunch of people and then didn't curate it. Everyone's question get in
2- Too long for the candidate. The best candidates will bail. Companies targeting ~10 minutes on a phone get great response rates
3- Too long for hiring committee. NOBODY is going to read this for most candidates. The reasons resumes win is because they're short for the hiring team, not because they're high-signal
I know 2 startups both hiring their first set of non-founder engineers.
One startup took 4 months to hire 2 senior engineers who weren't in their stack and then gave both of them about a month to come up to speed on the tech. Literally running tutorials.
So 5 months in, they have two onboarded senior engineers.
The other startup is 6 months in and hasn't made either hire. They see deep experience in their tech stack as required and don't want to wait longer for onboarding.
But in retrospect, they would have gotten to an onboarded team faster if they had hired like the first company.