Most teams claim they are remote first, but their hiring process is still office first. They paste their old onsite loop into Zoom, add a take home, then wonder why remote hires struggle or drop out mid process.
If your engineers rarely sit in the same room, your hiring process should explicitly test for written communication, async collaboration, and self management. That requires different signals and a different sequence, not just different tooling.
Start by defining remote specific success criteria
Before you change interviews, clarify what success looks like in your remote or hybrid environment. For a backend engineer, you probably have a skills list already (e.g. API design, databases, testing). Add a second column for remote specific behaviors.
- Written communication: Can they explain decisions in writing at the right level of detail?
- Async discipline: Do they unblock themselves and others without constant meetings?
- Autonomy and judgment: Can they move work forward with imperfect information?
- Cross time zone collaboration: Are they comfortable with delayed responses and handovers?
- Trust and reliability: Do they follow through on commitments without being chased?
Turn each into observable signals. For example, for written communication you might look for: structured answers in email, clear commit messages in a work sample, or how they document their thinking in a coding exercise.
Once you have this list, map every interview step to a small set of signals. If a step does not add unique remote relevant signal, cut or redesign it.
Design a three stage funnel that works asynchronously
A remote friendly hiring process should minimize synchronous time while increasing signal quality. One structure that works well for fully remote and hybrid teams looks like this:
Stage 1: Lightweight screen with written responses
Instead of jumping straight to a call, use an application form that collects short written answers to 3 – 5 role relevant prompts. Examples:
- “Share a recent technically challenging bug you fixed. How did you investigate it and what did you learn?”
- “You join a project where CI is flaky and slowing deploys. Outline how you’d approach stabilizing it over the first month.”
- “Describe how you like to work in a remote team. What do you expect from your manager and teammates?”
Review these asynchronously. You are screening for clarity of writing, depth of thinking, and whether their expectations of remote work match reality in your team. A hiring manager can skim 20 of these faster than doing three 30 minute calls, and the signal is sharper for remote suitability.
Optional but powerful: include one small realistic task that takes under 30 minutes, such as reviewing a short code snippet and describing what they would change. This shows how they communicate about code in writing, which matters a lot when your main collaboration tool is a pull request.
Stage 2: Practical work sample with async and live elements
Traditional whiteboard questions miss how someone works day to day, especially remotely. Use a scoped work sample that mirrors your environment:
- Time bound: Aim for 2 – 3 hours of effort, not a weekend project. Respect people’s time.
- Context rich: Provide a short product brief, some existing code, and a rough spec. This lets you observe how they deal with ambiguity.
- Written deliverables: Ask for both code and a short design or “approach” note (1 – 2 pages or a markdown file).
For example, for a full stack role you might provide a minimal service and ask them to add a feature and update an endpoint. They submit a PR plus a brief explanation of trade offs, testing strategy, and what they would do next with more time.
Review the work as a team, just like an internal PR. Use a simple rubric: correctness, code quality, tests, and clarity of explanation. Then schedule a 45 – 60 minute debrief call:
- First 30 minutes: walk through their solution and have a collaborative discussion. Focus on how they react to feedback and how they reason, not on catching them out.
- Next 15 – 30 minutes: pair on a small extension or refactor. Use their own editor and environment via screen share; this feels like a real remote pairing session.
This stage gives you signal on technical ability, remote collaboration over code, and how they handle async work followed by synchronous alignment.
Stage 3: Team fit across remote realities
Once you are confident in skills, spend the remaining time validating collaboration style and expectations. Plan two focused conversations instead of a marathon panel.
Conversation A: Manager alignment (45 minutes)
- Walk through a real, recent project from your team and explain how it played out remote: documents, decisions, handoffs, incidents.
- Ask them to describe a similar project they’ve done, including communication channels, documentation, and conflict resolution.
- Probe specifics: How do they handle blockers when their manager is offline? How do they keep stakeholders updated asynchronously?
Conversation B: Peer discussion (45 minutes)
- Include 2 – 3 future teammates who actually work remotely.
- Have them share how the team operates: standups (or lack of them), meeting norms, on call, code review culture.
- Give the candidate space to ask detailed questions about remote life on the team.
Both sides should leave these conversations with a realistic picture of what day one looks like, not a glossy remote work pitch. That realism reduces churn in the first six months.
Standardize interviews and decisions for distributed hiring teams
A remote hiring process breaks down when every interviewer freelances their own style. Distributed teams need extra structure so decisions don’t depend on who happened to be awake for the interview slot.
Create simple, shared scorecards. For each stage, define 4 – 6 competencies and a 1 – 4 rating scale with descriptions. Example for written communication:
- 1: hard to follow, missing context, unclear
- 2: understandable but unstructured, some gaps
- 3: clear, concise, anticipates most questions
- 4: exceptionally clear, well structured, surfaces trade offs proactively
Have every interviewer submit notes and ratings in writing before any discussion. This avoids dominance by the most senior or most extroverted person in a Zoom debrief.
Run async debriefs. Instead of a big meeting, create a single decision doc per candidate. Include:
- Role and level targeted
- Summary of each stage and links to work samples
- Interviewer ratings and short justifications
- Proposed decision with rationale from hiring manager
Invite comments from the loop over a 24 hour window, then make a call. This fits across time zones and forces clearer thinking than a rushed call between meetings.
Make the candidate experience match your remote culture
Candidates learn more about your remote culture from the process than from any careers page. Use that deliberately.
- Be explicit about timelines and expectations: share the whole process up front, including how long each step takes and what you evaluate.
- Favor written communication: send concise summaries after each stage with feedback when possible. This shows how you operate day to day.
- Mirror your meeting culture: if you keep internal meetings small and agenda driven, do the same for interviews.
- Respect working hours and time zones: offer at least two bands of interview slots and avoid pushing late night sessions as the default.
Internally, track two simple metrics: time to decision and offer acceptance rate. If remote candidates keep dropping after the work sample, your task is too heavy or your communication is too slow. If they decline offers often, your stated culture and your process might be out of sync.
A hiring process designed for remote and hybrid teams will feel different: more written, more async, and more focused on real day to day work. Done well, it gives you deeper signal with less calendar pain, and it helps candidates decide faster if your team is the right place for them. If you want a steady stream of engineers already comfortable with remote work, start by refining your process and then reach them where they are by signing up for free on unicorn.io.
