Django Coding Challenge: How to Choose the Right Developer for Your Project

Woman programmer working on a Django coding challenge

When evaluating new candidates for a web application developer or server developer, it’s important to test their proficiency in Django. While front-end developing languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are also important to test, it’s often debated that back-end development knowledge is more important when creating dynamic websites and applications that include databases, servers, security, and the option for scalability. So why is Django better to know for developers than any other Python web framework, and what are some things to keep in mind when evaluating a candidate with a Django coding challenge? Read on to find out!

Why Evaluate With a Django Coding Challenge?

The tech industry often values Django as the best Python web framework because of its bundled components and its ability to fasten the process of web application development. As the world's demand for more developers increases, the need for fast-paced development will also. 

Developers who understand Django can produce web applications at a rapid pace compared to those who do not. Django's Model-View-Template (MVT) architecture allows developers to manipulate all aspects of the code while leaving some parts alone, giving them better control over their code. 

By providing your applicants with a Django coding challenge, you can evaluate a developer's knowledge of fast-paced development, security, MVT architecture, and Python development. This coding challenge helps hiring managers to learn the hard skills a candidate possesses and, if utilizing the correct data-driven recruiting technology, also helps assess the candidate's soft skills. 

Django Coding Challenge: Keep This in Mind

When evaluating a candidate using a Django coding challenge, there are some things to remember.

Before The Interview: Resume Screening

While Django provides developers the opportunity to increase their speed in development, the soft skills each candidate possesses determine their ability to take advantage of Django's opportunities for improvement. 

While Django provides better security for developers than other web frameworks, the developer will still need to provide a great deal of problem-solving techniques when security measures arise in their applications. Also, developers will still need time management skills to take advantage of the components Django offers for fast-paced development.

Analyzing soft skills in an interview can be harder to evaluate than hard skills. Sometimes these get overlooked. If hiring teams implement data-driven recruiting technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) resume screening, the AI will do all the work for them. AI can pick out soft skills from a candidate's resume and present them to the hiring manager for an interview.

Take-Home Test: Basic Web Application Development

Before going into the Django coding challenge, you will probably give your applicants a take-home test to eliminate unqualified applicants. This take-home test should assess basic web application and web design skills. Questions in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will give you a realistic portrait of whether the applicant has good front-end development skills. If the applicant has good front-end coding skills or can read front-end code, they will likely understand back-end coding or possess those skill sets. 

Although a take-home test is great for this assessment, it’s best not to rely entirely on multiple-choice questions. Multiple-choice questions don’t fully assess an applicant's skill sets, as the results don’t account for the chance when a candidate randomly chooses a correct answer. The questions could also be poorly worded, affecting the results. 

Since virtual take-home tests are becoming more common, your take-home tests can implement recorded answers by video. This remedy provides better short answers that are more thorough than written answers or multiple-choice questions. It also reduces plagiarized answers that are copied and pasted straight from Google. 

Artificial intelligence can also decrease the time required to grade every candidate's take-home test. With automatic grading, your hiring teams can move on to the face-to-face interview faster.

Face-To-Face Evaluation: Django Coding Challenge/Project

Developers should be able to demonstrate their skills through a project. Since developers can use Django for various projects, choosing the Django coding challenge question can be difficult. Keep in mind that real-world scenarios are best. Implementing a real-world coding scenario will give applicants a better understanding of the types of projects your company invests in. It will also give your hiring team insight into whether the applicant can seamlessly fit into your development team or not.

Ideas for Real-Life Scenarios:

  1. Build and deploy a URL shortening application
  2. Build and deploy an English dictionary application
  3. Create a password input form
  4. Write a Django query that is equivalent to a given SQL query
  5. Build and deploy a digital shopping cart

Utilizing specialized environments can improve the quality of your evaluation. During the evaluation, you can use these unique environments built specifically for developers and hiring teams to make the best decisions for your open position(s):

  • Video conferencing room for pair programming
  • Remote whiteboard for diagram building
  • Interview Analytics 

Filtered Tools For Filling Positions With The Best Candidates

Hiring teams will evaluate candidates' interviewing for development positions on their ability to code efficiently. Django is the best Python web framework, allowing developers to reach their goals quickly and securely. If you are trying to evaluate candidates on their development proficiency, they should be able to demonstrate their skills through a project. Using a Django coding challenge and data-driven recruiting technology will help you gauge the candidate's proficiency in the language and their understanding of basic web development processes. Filtered provides all the necessary technology for your hiring teams to find the best candidate(s) for your open position(s). 

Filtered is a leader in skills-based hiring. Our end-to-end technical hiring platform enables you to spend time reviewing only the most qualified candidates, putting skills and aptitude at the forefront of your decisions. We’ll help you automate hiring while applying objective, data-driven techniques to consistently and confidently select the right candidates. To get started, contact our team today or register for a FREE demo.