In this guide you will learn how to quickly set up a live coding challenge for your interview process at any startup and any budget.

We believe Live coding sessions are the best interviewing method, but sometimes companies are reluctant to start them due to the lack of experience or time commitment to do them.

Why Live Coding Interviews Matter

The purpose of a live coding challenge is to evaluate a candidate’s raw technical ability. At Silver.dev, we’ve observed that the strongest predictor of engineering skill is a candidate’s ability to write code accurately under time constraints.

Unlike take-home assignments where extra time or AI assisted tooling candidates can compensate their basic coding abilities, Live Coding sessions are as authentic an evaluation method as you can make it.

Choosing the right problem

The design of your coding challenge shapes the type of talent you attract and hire and you should choose problems that are as similar as possible to your actual engineering challenges.

If your company focuses on building dashboards, ideally your interview process should reflect that. If your company handles analytics, an analytics-based problem is more relevant than an abstract algorithmic puzzle.

If your actual engineering challenges are not common, you can fall back to the fundamentals. Algorithms, modeling, common data structures and abstract programming challenges allow you to assess core skills. Live coding challenges do not need to be difficult.

Interview Difficulty

The objective measure of interview difficulty is the interview’s pass-rate. The most important decisions that will impact the pass-rate are the challenge difficulty itself (i.e. Leetcode Hard vs Easy) and the evaluation bar (the Rubrik). Some of the most demanding companies in the world have easy problems and brutal Rubriks, while others have challenging problems with easy Rubriks.

My recommendation is not to worry too much about difficulty at the beginning. Even filtering with easy challenges in a live coding will disqualify 50%+ of candidates and put a great floor on talent quality. You will have time to harden and raise the bar as you go.

Live coding interviews should evolve based on your hiring needs and feedback. The most important metric to track is pass-rate. A healthy pass-rate is between 10 and 30%.

If fewer than 10% or more than 30% of your candidates pass, you need to re-evaluate your process.

Choosing backend challenges

The industry is shifting away from purely algorithmic coding questions (like those found on LeetCode) as the primary evaluation method. While FAANG companies still emphasize data structures and algorithms (DSA), startups need a more practical approach to evaluate experience and familiarity with the target stack.

That said, easy-to-medium LeetCode-style challenges are still useful for evaluating problem-solving ability and coding fluency.

Option 1: Coding fluency

Choose 3(three) easy Leetcode questions. You can use the very platform for your interviews and speedy coders will be made clear.

Option 2: Problem Solving & Fundamentals

Choose a Design problem from Leetcode. The classic LRU Cache works as well as any other easy-medium with the Design Tag.

Option 3: Custom Challenge

The best challenges are custom challenges tailored to your business. They can be instructional about the challenges of your company making them engaging and fun for candidates. Examples include building APIs or designing a solution to a specific relevant problem.

Choosing Frontend Challenges

For frontend roles, generic DSA-style questions aren’t as effective. Instead, we recommend using practical UI-focused challenges:

• With no frontend expert available: A broad, self-contained game like Sudoku, Tic-Tac-Toe, or Connect Four (which you can host on CodeSandbox.io for free).
• With a frontend expert: More targeted challenges such as building a specific React component, implementing a reusable UI element, or fixing performance issues in a given codebase. Classic challenges involve building an Autocomplete, a Form, or native React hooks

Define a Clear Interview Rubric

A well-structured evaluation rubric ensures consistency across interviewers and reduces bias. At Silver.dev, we score candidates on three core dimensions:

1. Code Fluency: Can they write expressively, correctly, elegantly?
2. Communication: Do they explain their thought process clearly?
3. Problem-Solving: How do they deal with obstacles?

Each trait is rated as Strong No, No, Yes, or Strong Yes, with an overall evaluation at the end. A structured rubric ensures that every interviewer follows the same evaluation process, making your hiring decisions more data-driven and reliable.

Choosing the Right Tools for Live Coding

Setting up live coding interviews requires the right toolkit. From applicant tracking systems (ATS) to coding platforms, leveraging the right tools can save time and improve the candidate experience.

1. Artisanal Setup (Manual Approach)

If you prefer a hands-on approach, you can manually design and conduct your interviews using the following:

• Backend: Use Leetcode directly for your selected challenges, as it is free.
• Frontend: Use CodeSandbox.io to create shareable React/JavaScript challenges.
• Evaluation: Use a shared document like google docs or notion to score candidates based on your rubric.

Alternatively, you can also put problems on a repository or a gist, and instruct users to use their own environment. This is the optimal environment for many candidates, but some candidates will have not prepped or have issues with their computer setup, causing delays in the interview.

2. Automated Coding Platforms

For startups conducting frequent interviews, coding platforms can streamline the process. Here are the top choices:

Coderbyte

• Best value-for-money platform with unlimited interviews.
• Supports multiple languages and timed asynchronous challenges.
• Downside: Limited UI-based challenges and a basic code editor.

HackerRank

• A huge question bank with automated scoring.
• Good for DSA-heavy roles but less suited for UI/front-end evaluations.

CoderPad

• Aesthetic and easy-to-use interface with real-time collaboration.
• Free tier available (2 challenges per month), making it ideal for occasional hiring.
• Downside: Becomes very expensive with higher interview volume.

Other Notable Mentions

Codility and CodeSignal: Well-established but more suited for enterprise companies with large-scale hiring needs.

45-minute interviews

A 45 minute live coding interview is usually enough. The vast majority of candidates will receive a no in the interviewers mind within the first 5 minutes.

For all the rest, you want to know how far the candidate goes in comparison with the rest, but for most of the time it would be rare for someone to turn a “No” into a “Yes”.

Introduction(5m): Run a short ice-breaker conversation. Talk about the expectations of the challenge and try to ease the candidate’s nerves.

Coding Challenge(35m): It is usually enough for assessment. Remember that the purpose of the challenge is not for the candidate to finish it, but to give you signal about their technical skills and allow you to compare candidate’s performances.

Silver.dev can Help you

Silver.dev specializes in technical hiring and evaluation. If you need assistance structuring your live coding interviews or refining your process, reach out to us. We help startups attract and hire top engineering talent with a streamlined and effective hiring process.