My previous employer used something very similar: either adding small features or fixing known bugs of a past build of some open source software in 1-1.5hrs. We prepared one such interview question for each supported language (C++, Python, and Java), and, to help calibration, each question consisted of a series of requirements that required progressively more complex changes.
Both interviewees and interviewers seemed to like these questions. I do hope this approach gets more adoption in the industry. It takes more time to prepare, but the high-quality signals it provides are worth the effort imo. Such questions are also harder to leak compared to typical whiteboard coding questions and thus more reusable too.
Both interviewees and interviewers seemed to like these questions. I do hope this approach gets more adoption in the industry. It takes more time to prepare, but the high-quality signals it provides are worth the effort imo. Such questions are also harder to leak compared to typical whiteboard coding questions and thus more reusable too.