"Do you prefer live coding or take-homes?"

Ask five engineers and you’ll get ten answers. But if you’re a hiring manager, the better question is: Which one actually helps you hire the right person?

Let’s compare.

Live Coding

• Pros: Real-time interaction, can assess how a candidate thinks on the fly, human interaction

• Cons: Big time commitment, high pressure, artificial constraints, easy to mistake nerves for lack of skill

Take-Home Assignments

• Pros: Simulates real work, lets candidates use their own tools, less stressful, saves company time

• Cons: Time-consuming to review, risks being too open-ended

Now ask yourself: what do you actually care about?

Probably stuff like:

• Can they solve a real problem?

• Can they write maintainable code?

• Do they make good technical decisions?

• Can they communicate well?

Live coding is great for spotting fast thinkers.

But there’s more to engineering than just speed — it’s about clarity, consistency, and tradeoffs.

Take-homes? They nail that — if they’re done right.

How to Make Take-Homes Work

• Keep them scoped. 1.5-2 hours max.

• Make them relevant to the role.

• Use clear rubrics.

• Automate the review wherever possible.

• Allow the candidates to explain their logic.

That’s what we’ve built into Prova.

Our take-home challenges are scoped, measurable, and aligned with how your team actually works. They let a candidate build and share what they did, and why. And the best part? Engineers don’t have to manually run 10 interviews just to find 2 people worth talking to.

You get better signal. You get it faster, too. Candidates get a better experience.

So take-home vs. live coding? It’s not hard.