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In today’s fast-paced and interconnected world, software engineering has evolved into a highly collaborative profession. As the industry continues to embrace agile methodologies and distributed teams, the days of isolated developers working in silos are fading away. As such, the ability to effectively collaborate and solve technical challenges is becoming a critical aspect of a software engineer’s skillset.

Here at Codility, we get it. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce some exciting updates to our video interviewing platform, CodeLive! We’ve been working hard to enable seamless collaboration, offer high-fidelity assessments, and improve the overall audio and visual experience. Trust us, you’re in for a treat. 

Seamless, High-Fidelity Collaboration in CodeLive

We understand how critical it is to assess candidates in a realistic environment, and that’s why we’ve invested in enhancing CodeLive’s collaborative IDE (Integrated Development Environment). With our improved collaborative IDE, you can now engage in pair programming or mob programming with ease. 

To start, with our nifty new follow feature you can just click the “follow” button for another participant, and poof! You’ll be taken to the line of code where that user’s cursor is active. Pretty cool, right? And thanks to some new visual flair, participants are much easier to distinguish based on unique color coding, snazzy tooltips, and name labels. These features let you effortlessly track participants’ progress and provide constructive feedback in a more interactive and efficient way. You’ll be amazed at how smoothly you can work together, seeing exactly who’s present in the session and where they are in the IDE. Now, CodeLive is pretty much like having a coding jam session without the physical boundaries! 

You might also like: Codility Debuts the First Assessment of AI-Assisted Engineering Skills

Assess Problem-Solving Skills with Project Tasks!

We’ve also introduced support for project tasks in CodeLive. Project tasks feature a natural, multi-file project structure that mirrors the real-world experience of working with complex codebases; implementing changes through the addition, deletion, and refactoring of multiple files; and composing a solution. It’s like unleashing candidates into a coding playground where they can flex their problem-solving muscles and demonstrate their understanding of how the parts of a system interrelate and affect one another. They’re especially useful when assessing mid/senior-level candidates who are accustomed to applying systems thinking to address challenges in their day-to-day roles. 

Using project tasks within CodeLive provides a dynamic and engaging assessment experience while enabling candidates to demonstrate how they will contribute in a team-oriented development environment. They are ideally suited for measuring problem-solving skills as well as software architecture skills related to code scalability and maintainability. To add to that, project tasks are one of the most AI-resistant task types we offer, so you can rest assured that what you’re seeing in the interview is an accurate depiction of what the candidate will bring to the table on day one.

System Design, Your Way

System design skills are critical for many tech roles, particularly at senior levels. In addition, now that generative AI is handling some of the more routine tasks, engineers can focus more on understanding complex systems and their interplay. So we’ve rolled out more support for assessing system design skills in CodeLive. Now, interviewers can seamlessly integrate their own system design templates into the interview session, either beforehand or during the conversation.

This way you can present system design challenges that reflect your organization’s technical infrastructure to mimic the real challenges you need your engineers’ help in solving. In addition, candidates’ canvas diagrams and drawings are now automatically saved in their candidate reports, allowing hiring managers and reviewers the option to revisit and reexamine their work. Get ready to explore your candidates’ system design skills with clarity and precision.

Improving Candidate Experience and Collaboration

We know that a candidate’s interview experience can make or break their interest in accepting a job offer. The last thing you need is for them to experience technical glitches, dropped connections, or audio/video problems during their interview. So, apart from enhancing collaboration and enabling project tasks, we’ve also focused on some quality-of-life improvements to provide a smoother and more comfortable interview experience. 

We’ve ramped up connection quality across the board, and in the event there are issues, we’ve added system notifications to make you and your candidates aware that something’s not quite right. To further enhance the user experience, we’ve added the ability to minimize or maximize video sizes which gives you the flexibility to customize the layout to suit your preferences, making it easier to concentrate on particular aspects of the interview. We’ve also introduced the option to set up your preferred audio and video inputs before the call and have them saved for future sessions, saving you valuable time and effort. You can focus on what matters most – finding the best candidates for your team!

Lastly, we know the interview clock is ticking, and timing is everything. That’s why we’ve introduced a nifty feature that prompts all participants when the interview is about to start. With this handy addition, everyone will be prepared and ready to roll right on time, eliminating any awkward waiting around. So when the clock strikes interview o’clock, it’s go time! 

Get ready to dive into collaborative interviewing like never before with Codility’s enhanced interviewing experience! These new features will let you create an authentic coding workspace for your candidates, leading to better interactions and smarter hiring decisions.

Book a demo with us to see these brand-new features in action! One of our experts will guide you through the collaborative interview experience and how it can be customized to your use case. Current customers can contact their Codility representative to learn more about CodeLive and these new features. 

Gunther Nonneman is a Senior Product Manager at Codility.

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