My experience is that the programming exercise never deterred a candidate I really wanted to interview. That might be a little surprising, but I always work very hard to make sure there&#x27;s a good conversation in the initial phone screen, so I think that helps a lot. Also, programmers (myself included) always underestimate how much time it will take to write a given piece of code, so maybe that helps, too!<p>I do think it&#x27;s valuable to talk about previous experience in the ways you suggest -- what do good teams&#x2F;processes look like, etc. I usually try to do that in a pretty casual way, during the in-person interview, and have those conversations bleed over into the lunch&#x2F;dinner discussion, too. Basically, I&#x27;m interested in learning about how a person thinks about their work. And introspection about team dynamics is definitely part of that.