Recurse Center redesigned its admissions application, adding Oxford All Souls-style open-ended questions to better filter and excite self-directed programmers.
Key Takeaways
New optional questions include “weirdest bug you’ve fixed,” “code is more like math or literature,” and discussing the SICP quote on writing programs for people to read.
Added a “project you’re proudest of” prompt to capture qualitative reasoning and closed-source work beyond public repo links.
RC’s design principle: a well-crafted application excites good candidates and causes poor-fit candidates to self-select out, reducing unnecessary interviews.
Practical anti-LLM tactic: fill out your own application with an LLM to calibrate what generated answers look like; job posts include a “red turtle” mention request to catch machine applicants.
RC recommends publishing your evaluation rubric externally so curious candidates can self-assess fit before applying.
Hacker News Comment Review
A dissenting thread questions whether superlative memory-dependent questions (“weirdest bug,” “proudest project”) disadvantage skilled programmers who engage deeply in the moment but don’t rank past work.
One commenter raised a structural concern about RC’s identity: if LLMs reduce the incentive to develop deep software craft, the cohort of people RC was built for may shrink over time.
Notable Comments
@zem: argues superlative questions like “weirdest bug” are hard to answer for programmers who enjoy work in the present but don’t rank or retain comparative memories of past projects.
@righthand: “What happens to places like this that were about coding, now that LLMs are here to encourage people to not build good software?”
