I like that they're making the project an optional track, but as a fairly extroverted interviewee I would much prefer talking through code with an interviewer. I feel like the 8 hours of programming I'd do on a take-home project could be assessed with a one-hour conversation walking through code I've already written. (It's especially frustrating when the projects are low-level, like creating a basic CRUD app that uses a lot of libraries, and I've implemented the solution so many times that most of the work on the project is just typing it out. I could just walk the interviewer through one of my many CRUD app side projects.)
Furthermore, collaborating in-person with another engineer tells me more about their engineering culture, and tells them more about whether I'm someone who can collaborate well with others. An hour of pair programming on one engineer's current real-job task would tell us both a lot about each other in a fraction of the time.
Furthermore, collaborating in-person with another engineer tells me more about their engineering culture, and tells them more about whether I'm someone who can collaborate well with others. An hour of pair programming on one engineer's current real-job task would tell us both a lot about each other in a fraction of the time.