The deadline was approaching.
The product needed to ship.
And the team needed a developer, fast.
Peter knew the pressure well. Meet Peter, the HR manager, who had to fill the role before the delay turned into a full-blown release problem.
The resume looked solid. The interview went smoothly. And on paper, the hire felt like the right call.
Two months later, the sprint velocity dropped, bugs kept surfacing, and the software development team started rewriting more code than they were shipping.
The product lead is frustrated. The engineering manager is exhausted. And Peter is staring at the same question a lot of teams face after a bad hire: “How did we miss this?”
Peter didn’t hire the wrong person; however, he followed the wrong screening process. He wasn’t careless. He was under pressure and made a decision.
If you've been hiring for tech roles, you already know this moment. The roadmap is packed, customers are waiting, and the engineering manager is sending messages like, “We can’t keep running like this.” Then the pressure lands on HR or talent acquisition to find someone fast, and fast hiring has a nasty habit of turning into sloppy hiring.
This guide is built to fix that. You’ll learn how to screen software developers in a way that is practical, fair, and fast. We will explain what developers do. We will also show what to look for in a resume and portfolio. You will learn how to run technical assessments. We will teach how to structure interviews. We will explain how to evaluate system design. We will show how to assess soft skills and cultural fit. We will do this without making the process too long.
Understanding the Role of a Software Developer
Try picturing 2026 without software.
No online shopping. No mobile banking. No ride-hailing. No dashboards. No CRMs. No internal tools that keep teams moving. Even the “simple” parts of business, such as invoicing, payroll, and customer support, rely on systems that developers build and maintain.
Indeed, the demand for software developers continues to rise. But hiring developers remains hard for one major reason: developer roles are not one-size-fits-all.
A front-end developer building a high-performance web app needs a different skill set than a backend developer building APIs. A DevOps engineer who manages cloud infrastructure is not the same as a mobile developer working on iOS. Even within the same job title, the work can vary wildly depending on the company’s scale, tech stack, product maturity, and engineering culture.
When you hire a software developer, you’re usually hiring a mix of two categories:
- Technical skills: coding, architecture, debugging, testing, systems thinking
- Interpersonal skills: communication, collaboration, ownership, adaptability
A developer can be brilliant technically and still fail in your team if they can’t communicate or take feedback. Another developer can be a great teammate but struggle with delivery. Your screening needs to check for both.
Here are the most common responsibilities developers handle across roles.
- Designing software applications: Developers translate product requirements into technical plans. They think through edge cases, performance, user flows, and system constraints. If you’re building something like a candidate assessment platform, they’ll consider UI flows, candidate experience, scoring logic, proctoring signals, video stability, and security.
- Writing code: Developers write the actual code that powers the product. Languages can include JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, C++, Go, Scala, and more. What matters is not the language alone, but the quality: readability, maintainability, and consistency.
- Testing and debugging: Good developers test their work and troubleshoot issues properly. They isolate problems, reproduce bugs, check logs, and fix issues without causing new ones. They also think about prevention, not only patching.
- Maintaining software: After release, developers monitor, refactor, optimize, and improve. They fix bugs, make performance upgrades, and add new features while keeping the codebase stable.
- Collaborating with stakeholders: Developers work with product managers, designers, QA, and sometimes customers. They clarify requirements, push back when something is risky, and propose better solutions when needed.
A strong screening process should map to these responsibilities. If your process doesn’t test for the work a developer will do, you’re basically hiring based on storytelling.
Evaluating Portfolio and Resume: What to Look For in a Software Developer’s Resume
Before you run assessments, you still need to shortlist candidates. Resumes and portfolios won’t tell you everything, but they can help you filter out obvious mismatches and identify candidates worth testing.
Here’s what to look for.
1. Assess the work experience
According to reports, the first thing most teams check is candidate experience. That’s fine, but don’t stop at “years.” Look at relevance. A developer with two years of building APIs at scale might be a better fit than someone with five years of doing small website changes. You want to understand what they built, how complex it was, what tools they used, and what role they played.
Also, job hopping is common in tech. Short stints don’t always mean risk. Look for patterns. If a candidate has five roles in two years with no explanation, that’s a signal you should explore.
2. Check if they match the job description.
Job titles don’t mean much in tech. One company’s “Software Engineer” is another company’s “Senior Engineer,” and vice versa.
Instead of trusting titles, check whether the candidate has worked with the tools and skills your role needs:
- Languages and frameworks
- Databases
- Cloud services
- Version control and CI/CD
- Testing practices
- Role-specific requirements like Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, or infrastructure monitoring
Different roles require different mixes. A DevOps role needs infrastructure skills. A mobile role needs platform knowledge. A backend role needs strong database and API design. For every role, the assessment method varies.
3. Look for personalization
Some resumes look like copy-paste templates filled with buzzwords. Others read like a human wrote them.
You want candidates who can explain what they built in simple terms. Look for evidence of thinking, not a list of tools. If the resume reads like a generic template with no specifics, that’s a sign the candidate might struggle with communication or might be inflating their work.
4. Ask for a portfolio or proof of work.
A portfolio is not always mandatory, but proof matters in tech. It can include:
- GitHub repositories
- Open-source contributions
- Side projects
- Technical blogs or write-ups
- Screenshots and descriptions of shipped work
- Case studies showing what they built and how
Not every strong developer has a perfect GitHub. Some work in private repos. That’s fine. But you still want proof in some form: code samples, project summaries, system explanations, or past work that shows ownership.
5. Use keywords carefully
Keywords can help if you’re using an Applicant Tracking System, but they can also mislead. A resume stuffed with tools doesn’t guarantee depth. Use keywords as a filter, not as a final decision-maker.
A simple method is to define:
- Must-have skills
- Nice-to-have skills
- Deal-breakers
Then shortlist accordingly.
Technical Assessments and Coding Challenges
Once you’ve shortlisted resumes, the next step is where most teams either win or mess things up. You need to validate technical skills before you invest time in long interview rounds. A good technical test answers a few core questions:
- Can the candidate solve problems similar to the job’s problems?
- Can they write clean, maintainable code?
- Do they handle edge cases and test thinking?
- Can they debug, not only build?
- Do they communicate their approach clearly?
The assessment should be role-relevant. Avoid random puzzle problems that only reward memorization.
A few practical assessment formats:
- Coding task aligned with your stack and role level.
- Debugging task with a realistic bug scenario
- Code review task where candidates critique and improve existing code
- Mini system design prompt for mid to senior roles
If you want to run this smoothly, tools like TestTrick can help you deliver coding tests, role-specific assessments, situational judgment tests, and supporting psychometric or cognitive tests, depending on your preference, from the wide assessment library.
TestTrick is a pre-employment assessment platform that helps you measure your candidates on job skills, personality, and fit. Moreover, it has AI-based proctoring with plagiarism detection features to avoid cheating and malpractices. The key is not the tool itself. The key is choosing the right test and scoring it consistently.
A quick note on candidate scoring: always use a rubric. Without a rubric, you will end up debating opinions instead of evaluating performance. A basic rubric might include:
- Correctness
- Code clarity
- Efficiency
- Testing mindset
- Edge case handling
- Communication
Structured vs Unstructured Interviews
Interviews matter. But the type of interview matters more. When recruiting candidates for technical roles, structured and unstructured interviews have their own advantages.
Unstructured interviews are the most common, and they’re also the easiest to mess up. They often turn into casual conversations. Different interviewers ask different questions. Candidates get evaluated based on vibes, confidence, and personal chemistry.
However, this creates inconsistency. And inconsistency creates bias.
Structured interviews are more reliable technical interviews because they use the same format and criteria for every candidate. They allow you to compare candidates fairly.
A strong structured interview usually includes:
- A short overview of the role and expectations
- A technical deep-dive into one past project
- A role-relevant scenario question
- A collaboration and communication section
- Time for candidate questions
- Scoring using a rubric right after the call.
The biggest benefit of structured interviews is this: you stop hiring the best talker and start hiring the best performer.
Live Coding Interviews
Live coding has a mixed reputation. Some candidates hate it. Some teams rely on it too much.
Live coding works best when it feels like real work and when the environment is fair.
If you do live coding, keep these rules:
- Keep tasks realistic and aligned with the job.
- Let candidates ask clarifying questions.
- Focus on how they think, not only the final code.
- Keep it short and respectful.
Good live coding prompts include:
- Write a small function with edge cases.
- Fix a bug in a short snippet.
- Add a small feature to a simple codebase.
- Refactor code for clarity
- Avoid turning it into a stress test. You want signal, not panic.
Assess System Design Knowledge
If you’re hiring mid-level or senior developers, system design matters. Not because they need to build the next Netflix, but because senior hires influence architecture decisions that affect stability and speed.
A good system design discussion evaluates:
- Problem breakdown
- Trade-off thinking
- Scalability awareness
- Failure handling
- Clarity of communication
Pick prompts relevant to your product. For example:
- Design a candidate assessment flow with scoring and reporting
- Design a video interview upload and playback pipeline
- Design a queue system for proctoring events
- Design role-based access for admin users
A strong candidate asks questions before proposing solutions. A weak candidate jumps into architecture without clarifying requirements.
Technical skill is necessary, but it’s not enough.
Many developer hires fail because of communication, ownership, or teamwork problems. Screening should evaluate how someone behaves in real team situations. This can be done using technical screening tools designed for the hiring processes.
Ways to assess soft skills and behavior:
- Behavioral interview questions about real past experiences
- Situational questions tied to your work environment
- Collaboration scenarios
- Communication clarity in explaining technical decisions
Good questions include:
- Tell me about a time you handled a production incident
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with a product decision
- Tell me about a time you refactored messy code
- Tell me about a time you helped a teammate under pressure
You can also use situational judgment tests if you want consistent evaluation across candidates.
Conclusion
Developer screening is not about making hiring harder. It’s about making hiring safer.
Resumes and casual interviews can’t reliably show how developers work. Skills-based screening solves this by testing real job skills early, using consistent scoring, candidate evaluation and aligning interviews with role requirements.
A practical screening flow looks like this:
- Resume and portfolio review
- Role-relevant technical assessment
- Structured interview with rubric scoring
- Live coding or code review if needed
- System design interview for senior roles
- Soft skills and culture fit evaluation
- Clear decision based on evidence
If you want to run this at scale and keep it consistent, tools like TestTrick can help you set up coding assessments, role-based tests, and structured evaluations so you hire developers who ship, collaborate, and improve the team’s output.
FAQs
1. Should we still review resumes if we use coding assessments?
Yes. Use resumes to filter obvious mismatches. Use assessments to make real decisions.
2. What is the best first assessment for developers?
A short role-relevant coding task or debugging task is usually the strongest early signal.
3. Are live coding interviews necessary?
Not always. Some teams prefer take-home tasks plus a code review. If you use live coding, keep it realistic and fair.
4. How long should developer screening take?
Fast enough to avoid losing strong candidates. Many teams aim for one to two weeks.
5. How do we reduce bias in developer hiring?
Use structured interviews, consistent rubrics, and role-based assessments. Reduce reliance on gut feel.
6. What matters beyond coding?
Communication, ownership, debugging mindset, teamwork, and judgment under pressure often separate good hires from costly ones.