iOS Interview Live Coding: How do you structure your technical assessments?

[beyzaince]

I'm part of an iOS team and we're looking to learn from the community about live coding practices during technical interviews.

Our Current Approach

We have a dedicated example project that we use for live coding sessions. During the interview, candidates work on this project to:

• Identify and refactor code smells - Reviewing existing problematic code and improving it
• Implement a small feature - Building functionality to evaluate problem-solving and coding skills

This helps us observe how candidates navigate an unfamiliar codebase, communicate their thought process, and apply best practices.

Questions for the Community

1. What does your live coding process look like? (duration, format, tools)
2. Do you use take-home assignments, live pairing, or a combination?
3. What types of problems do you find most effective for evaluating iOS developer competency?
4. How do you balance assessing technical skills vs. collaboration/communication?
5. What signals or behaviors do you look for to differentiate senior vs. mid-level candidates?

We'd love to hear about different approaches and what has worked well (or not) for your teams.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences! 🙏

[Dhivakar2005]

1. Duration & Format: We use a 60–90 minute live coding session with a small, realistic iOS project instead of algorithmic problems.

2. Assessment Style: We combine a short take-home assignment (optional) with a live pair-programming session to evaluate both coding ability and collaboration.

3. Problem Types: Candidates typically fix a bug, refactor an existing component, or implement a small feature. These tasks better reflect real-world iOS development.

4. Technical vs. Communication: We prioritize how candidates communicate their thought process, ask clarifying questions, explain trade-offs, and respond to feedback over simply finishing the task.

5. Mid-Level vs. Senior Signals:

   • Mid-Level: Correct implementation, clean Swift code, debugging skills, and understanding of UIKit/SwiftUI fundamentals.
   • Senior: Strong architectural decisions, testing strategy, dependency injection, concurrency (Swift Concurrency/GCD), performance considerations, and the ability to discuss scalability and maintainability.

6. Key Success Indicators: We value structured problem-solving, readable code, effective use of Xcode tools, collaboration, and the ability to adapt when requirements change. These qualities are often better predictors of success than completing every coding task.

[beyzaince]

Thanks, this is helpful 🙏

Could you share a bit more detail about the actual live coding exercise you use?

For example:

What kind of bug/refactoring/feature do you typically ask candidates to work on?
How large is the sample project and how much context do you give upfront?
Do you have a predefined rubric or scoring criteria for the session?
For senior candidates, do you introduce additional complexity or mainly evaluate how they approach the same task?
How much guidance do interviewers give if the candidate gets stuck?

I'm especially curious about how you keep the assessment consistent between different interviewers and candidate levels.