Why Exiqus Exists
Transforming tech hiring from arbitrary tests to evidence-based evaluation
The Problem: Hiring Tests What Doesn't Matter
The Current Broken System
LeetCode Theater
Candidates spend months memorizing algorithms they'll never use on the job. Can you reverse a binary tree in 15 minutes? Congratulations—you'll never do it again.
The $500M Gaming Economy
An entire industry exists to help candidates fake competence through interview prep courses. When gaming is profitable, the game is broken.
The Privilege Trap: Only GitHub Celebrities Need Apply
Requiring active GitHub portfolios favors those with free time—not parents, caregivers, or professionals in proprietary codebases. Only 8-10% of developers have active portfolios. The other 90%? Real work doesn't make it to public repos.
That's why Exiqus doesn't require activity. Dormant repos work. Old projects work. A single side project from 2019 works. We analyse what's there—not what influencers say should be there.
The Paradox
Only 30% of hiring managers actually review GitHub portfolios—and those who do spend just 6 seconds scanning them. Meanwhile, developers stress over maintaining activity, thinking it matters.
The result? Arbitrary puzzles filter out great engineers. Real work goes ignored.
The Exiqus Solution: Evidence Over Performance
A Better Way: Analyse Real Work
GitHub is the world's largest collection of real developer work. Exiqus systematizes it.
We don't care if your portfolio is:
- •Brand new or years old
- •Actively maintained or dormant
- •Personal projects, open-source contributions, or learning repos
- •3 repositories or 300
What matters: evidence of how you think, build, and solve problems.
Exiqus analyses:
Then generates contextual interview questions grounded in YOUR actual work—so hiring managers can have meaningful conversations, not scripted performances.
One repository is enough. Real work speaks for itself.
Evidence-Based Evaluation
Submit Real Code
Candidates provide GitHub repositories - actual projects they've built, not contrived interview exercises.
Extract Evidence Patterns
We analyse code quality, architectural decisions, collaboration patterns, and technical depth - no arbitrary scoring.
Generate Meaningful Questions
Based on the actual code, we suggest interview questions that explore real decisions and trade-offs the candidate made.
Have Real Conversations
Interviews become discussions about actual work, not performances of memorized algorithms.
Industry Leaders Are Shifting
Leading tech companies are moving away from algorithmic puzzles toward evidence-based assessment:
Zed Industries
Hired top engineers through 6-10 months of GitHub contribution observation
Challenge: Months of manual observation per candidate (impractical at scale)
What Exiqus does: Deliver that multi-month insight in one automated analysis
NeetCode (Navdeep Singh)
Individual creator who built a $1M+ interview prep platform teaching LeetCode
Then admitted: "While these problems are not directly useful on the job, they function as industry gatekeepers"
What this proves: If the guy making millions from LeetCode says it's broken... it's broken. The market is shifting to analyzing real work—when even the biggest interview prep educator admits it's theater, change is inevitable
GitLab. Shopify. Zapier. Over 600 companies have moved away from algorithmic puzzles. Exiqus systematizes what industry leaders already know: real code predicts real performance.
The Science of Better Hiring
Not all interview methods are created equal. Decades of industrial-organizational research reveals which hiring stages actually predict job success:
| Interview Method | Predictive Validity (r) | What This Means |
|---|---|---|
| Work-sample tests | 0.33 | Standardized exercises like take-homes |
| Structured behavioral interview | 0.42† | Strong when standardized |
| Coding puzzles / technical panels* | Unknown | No published validity research |
| Unstructured interview | 0.22 | Nearly random—gut feel bias |
| Résumé / reference review | 0.18 | Filtering tool only |
Source: Schmidt & Oh 2016 meta-analysis; Roth et al. 2005; updated IO research 2020–2024
* No published research validates coding puzzle interviews (e.g., LeetCode, HackerRank challenges) for predicting software engineering job performance. Estimates of 0.30-0.40 are extrapolations from general cognitive ability tests (0.31) and job knowledge tests (0.40), but these are different assessment types.
† Schmidt & Oh 2016 consensus is 0.42; some studies show ranges up to 0.51-0.64 depending on structure and implementation.
Why GitHub ≠ Work Sample Tests
Work sample tests (r = 0.33) are artificial exercises like take-homes or coding challenges. Exiqus doesn't test candidates—we analyse years of real work.
The Critical Distinction:
- Work sample tests = Standardized hiring exercises (0.33 validity)
- GitHub analysis = Observational data from real projects over time
- Exiqus is first-mover: No research exists yet on GitHub portfolio validity for hiring
What We're Building:
We're creating the first validated dataset linking GitHub evidence to hiring outcomes. Whether GitHub analysis is more or less predictive than work sample tests (0.33) is an open research question—we're the first to answer it.
Does This Actually Cover Real Hiring?
The Short Answer: Yes—and it's bigger than you think.
Over 150 million developers use GitHub globally. While exact portfolio penetration is unknown, the evidence is clear: most professional developers have something public—active or dormant, maintained or archived.
GitHub users globally
With public repositories
The Hidden Majority:
Hiring managers say "only 30% look at GitHub profiles"—but that's because manual review is impossible at scale. Exiqus systematizes what elite companies like Zed Industries do manually: turning scattered repos into structured evidence.
What If a Candidate Has No GitHub Activity?
For Developers:
- Use personal projects, open-source contributions, or learning repos
- One well-documented project reveals more than a year of commit graphs
- Dormant portfolios still reveal thinking patterns
For Employers:
- Provide take-home assignments and analyse them through Exiqus
- Request candidates share selected public projects (even if old)
- Future: Exploring secure analysis options for private repos
Real work doesn't expire. Evidence speaks for itself.
Join the Movement
Let's fix tech hiring together.
Whether you're a new developer with learning projects or a veteran with dormant repos, your real work deserves to be seen.
Whether you're hiring for a startup or scaling a team, evidence beats guesswork every time.