Certainly do that in the UK for the TWU recruitment process. I’m not sure whether it’s done for lateral hires or not. I did do some pairing interviews when I was in Australia, not sure if that’s still done in the UK.

I think that’s a good point you make about putting the effort into the code review being a fair indicator of whether they will excel at their profession.

However, I still think that having a code submission be a “gate” in the process is important – immediately eliminating the ones that do not have the initial skill level.

Even outside of skill level, you can often tell how much effort someone puts into the code submission, so regardless of whether they make technical mistakes, you can tell whether they really tried in the first place. I find this to a be a reflection on hard they will try to excel at their profession, and grow as an individual.

Certainly, if any company can identify people who are lacking in skill but certainly have great desire to grow, and wants to spend the money training and nurturing those people, then they could build a top notch person. It may be a little harsh, but I’d rather begin with people that have both skill and motivation.