If you are requested to do a code challenge, I recommend you don't waste your time, decline, and provide a code sample instead. I had an initial phone screen (where the person was late). It was a typical 15 minute phone screen about my background/experience. Then I had another phone interview that lasted about an hour and a half with 3 developers. It actually went over 30 minutes, so I saw that as a good sign. Then I did a programming challenge that took me about 5 hours. The only feedback I got was that my solution didn't show enough object-oriented knowledge. A person who has read a Wikipedia entry on OO design could tell you that the challenge they give out is not a test of OO design. For example, one of their requirements is to find and fix this SQL injection line: @item = @project.items.where("id = #{params[:id]}").first The entire challenge is full of simple fixes like these - with no OO focus.