Hiring Is the Most Important Thing You Do

The quality of your team determines the quality of your software. A great technical interview process identifies strong engineers accurately, provides a positive candidate experience, and minimizes bias. At Nexis Limited, we have refined our interview process through years of hiring across Bangladesh and internationally.

Interview Structure

A well-structured interview process typically includes:

  1. Resume screening: Filter for relevant experience and skills. Consider non-traditional backgrounds — bootcamp graduates, open-source contributors, and self-taught engineers can be excellent hires.
  2. Phone screen (30 minutes): Briefly assess technical knowledge, communication skills, and mutual fit. Discuss experience and a few focused technical questions.
  3. Technical assessment (60-90 minutes): Hands-on coding or take-home assignment to evaluate practical skills.
  4. System design interview (45-60 minutes): For mid-level and senior roles. Evaluate architectural thinking.
  5. Team fit / behavioral interview (30-45 minutes): Evaluate collaboration, communication, and alignment with team values.

Coding Assessments

Live Coding

A 60-minute collaborative coding session where the candidate solves a problem in a shared editor. Focus on practical problems related to the work they will do — not algorithmic puzzles. Observe problem-solving approach, code quality, communication, and ability to handle ambiguity.

Take-Home Assignments

A 3-4 hour take-home project that resembles real work: build a small API, create a UI component, or fix bugs in an existing codebase. This reduces interview stress and produces higher-quality assessments. Time-limit it to prevent unfair advantage for candidates with more free time.

What to Evaluate

  • Problem solving: How does the candidate break down the problem? Do they clarify requirements before coding?
  • Code quality: Is the code readable, well-structured, and idiomatic for the language?
  • Testing awareness: Does the candidate consider edge cases? Do they write tests?
  • Communication: Does the candidate explain their thinking? Do they ask good questions?

System Design Interviews

For senior roles, system design interviews evaluate architectural thinking:

  • Present an open-ended problem: "Design a URL shortener" or "Design a food delivery tracking system."
  • Evaluate how the candidate gathers requirements, identifies core components, makes tradeoffs, and handles scale.
  • Look for structured thinking, awareness of distributed systems challenges, and ability to justify design decisions.
  • Senior candidates should discuss database choices, caching strategies, scaling approaches, and failure modes.

Behavioral Signals

Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient. Evaluate:

  • Collaboration: How do they handle disagreements? Can they articulate tradeoffs?
  • Ownership: Do they take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks?
  • Learning orientation: Are they curious about new technologies? Do they reflect on past mistakes?
  • Communication: Can they explain technical concepts clearly to different audiences?

Reducing Bias

  • Use structured interviews with consistent questions for all candidates.
  • Evaluate against a rubric with defined criteria, not gut feeling.
  • Blind resume screening where possible.
  • Include diverse interviewers on the panel.
  • Avoid "culture fit" evaluation — focus on "culture add" and shared values.

Candidate Experience

Candidates are evaluating you too. Provide a positive experience:

  • Communicate the interview process upfront — stages, timeline, and what to prepare.
  • Provide feedback after the process, even for rejected candidates.
  • Respect the candidate's time — start and end on schedule.
  • Make interviewers available for candidate questions about the team and culture.

Conclusion

A great hiring process balances rigor with respect. Design interviews that evaluate real skills, reduce bias with structured evaluation, and provide a positive candidate experience. The engineers you hire today shape the software you build tomorrow.

Growing your engineering team? Our team can advise on hiring processes and technical assessment design.