---
id: B-006
type: barrier
title: "Take-Home / Work Sample Evaluation"
lang: en
registry: 2026.08.2
canonical: https://hoba.work/barriers/B-006
json: https://hoba.work/api/v1/barriers/B-006.json
---

# Take-Home / Work Sample Evaluation

Asynchronous technical assignment or project artifact reviewed by engineering peers against quality benchmarks.

> **On the canonical path** — [Assessed on the work, against a rubric that is shared](https://hoba.work/process#WF-003-work-sample)
>
> One timeboxed exercise that resembles the job. The candidate is given the criteria before starting, the timebox is enforced against the evaluator as well, and the same rubric scores everyone.
>
> This entry is one of the ways that commitment stops being kept.

## At a glance

- Stage: Technical
- Step in the funnel: #8
- Evidence: established

## Passing condition

Code artifact satisfies architectural, functional, test coverage, and documentation requirements.

## What it looks like

Composite excerpts, written to be typical rather than copied. No particular message, company or person is quoted here.

**Review record** — *reconstruction*

```
  Submission received: 41 files, 78 tests, README with design rationale.
> Reviewer 1: 9 minutes. Reviewer 2: 4 minutes.
  Scored on: architecture, test coverage, documentation, commit hygiene.
  Outcome: advance.
```

*What to notice* This gate compares hours of work against minutes of review. It can pass or fail on what a reader happened to open.

## From each side

The same entry from inside each position that meets it: what reaches them, what it means from there, and what happens next given what they control.

### Hiring manager

- **What reaches them:** A repository and a scoring form, opened between the team's own delivery work. The hours the submission took are not a field on the form.
- **What it means from there:** A score against the rubric reads as the work this candidate would produce on the team.
- **What happens next:** Advances or declines on the returned scores. A second read is scheduled where the two reviewers disagree, and not otherwise.

### Candidate

- **What reaches them:** A brief, a deadline, and a scope the candidate sets inside it. After submission, a verdict with no reference to any particular file.
- **What it means from there:** The hours spent read as the unit this gate measures, and a decline reads as a judgement on the code.
- **What happens next:** Builds to the upper bound of the brief, because the brief states a scope and not a review depth. What is left afterwards is the dates and the wording of the verdict.

### Recruiter

- **What reaches them:** The date the assignment went out, the date it came back, and a line of recommendation. The submission itself is not in the fields the recruiter works from.
- **What it means from there:** The gate reads as an interval in the pipeline: days between dispatch and a decision that can be acted on.
- **What happens next:** Follows up with the reviewers as the interval grows, and writes the outcome from the recommendation, since the notes behind it do not reach the recruiter.

## Related entries

- precedes — [B-007](https://hoba.work/barriers/B-007) — Hiring Manager In-Depth Review

---

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