We're happy to announce that interviewers can optionally attach an additional service to a VS Code interview environment, such as a database or caching system.
With this update, you can now enable data services in VS Code-based interviews. This allows candidates to work in an environment that more closely matches their day-to-day setup, using realistic workflows and tooling.
As a result, you can better assess real-world engineering skills while still benefiting from a controlled, consistent, and fair interview experience.
Key Benefits
- More realistic VS Code interview environments aligned with real-world development setups
- Ability to assess data-related and backend skills (e.g. querying, persistence, caching)
- Additional services can be added to any available interview environment
How to attach a service
VS Code environments are now started from Advanced coding, on the interview welcome screen or through Add task during the interview.
- Click Advanced coding.
- Under Base technology, pick a technology.
- Under Attached services, add the service you need.
- Click Confirm to start the environment.
Up to two additional services can be added per interview. The currently supported services are:
- MongoDB (port 27017)
- PostgreSQL (port 5432)
- Redis (port 6379)
- MySQL (port 3306)
Interviewers can design tasks that incorporate these services as part of the problem. Candidates use the attached services during the interview to demonstrate data-related and backend skills.
For an overview of the two coding options, see Basic coding vs Advanced coding in Interview.
This feature is currently in Preview. If you'd like to learn more, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or email support@codility.com.
For more details, please take a look at this article.