I really like the idea of adding a Slack channel to the problem statement. I always have questions, and channeling them through a recruiter via email is a pain.
A lot of take home problems are very unrealistic, so it's difficult to make the trade-offs that you'd normally make when trying to ship software. Being able to ask someone on the team what their intentions are would be super helpful.
My pet peeve is front-end tests that ask you to write maintainable code, but you're not allowed to use any libraries. So instead you have to create your own tiny MVC/templating/helper libraries just for the project - but obviously they won't be as good as something you've spent more than 4 hours on.
Unless the task was to write an MVC or helper library I'd be concerned the candidate wasn't using a library of some sort. It's really interesting getting a sense of where someone spent their time on a project - asking the candidate that question has been the turning point in the discussion because it a.) tells you if they actually wrote the code and b.) gives you a closeup view on how the person thinks
A lot of take home problems are very unrealistic, so it's difficult to make the trade-offs that you'd normally make when trying to ship software. Being able to ask someone on the team what their intentions are would be super helpful.
My pet peeve is front-end tests that ask you to write maintainable code, but you're not allowed to use any libraries. So instead you have to create your own tiny MVC/templating/helper libraries just for the project - but obviously they won't be as good as something you've spent more than 4 hours on.