Hire Go developers by skill

Which screening questions work for Go roles?

Screening questions go out by email right after a candidate enters the pipeline. Answers are scored against the skill matrix, with a written reason. Here are three from the Go library.

1. Q1 How do you make sure goroutines stop when a request is cancelled?
2. Q2 When would you use a channel, and when a mutex?
3. Q3 Tell us how you profiled and fixed a slow Go service.

What does the Go coding task look like?

Concurrent link checker. Build a service that checks a list of URLs in parallel with a worker limit, timeouts and cancellation. Time limit 75 minutes.

1. Run checks with a bounded worker pool
2. Respect context cancellation and timeouts
3. Return results in input order
4. Write table-driven tests and run the race detector

func Check(ctx context.Context, urls []string, workers int) []Result {
	results := make([]Result, len(urls))
	sem := make(chan struct{}, workers)
	var wg sync.WaitGroup
	for i, u := range urls { wg.Add(1); go check(ctx, i, u, sem, results, &wg) }
	wg.Wait()
	return results
}

Running hidden tests
passed 9 of 11
failed respects_max_workers, times_out_slow_host

How much does a Go developer cost?

Pay varies a lot by country, city, seniority and company. Public salary surveys show broad yearly ranges like these for mid-level to senior Go developers. Treat them as a starting point and check current surveys for your market.

Go engineers often work on infrastructure and high-traffic systems, which keeps their pay near the top of backend ranges.