[ajbt200128]

> If you're screening to only candidates who can code in the language your company primarily works with, you're missing good candidates.

I agree with that. I work somewhere that uses a lot of OCaml, we don't screen out those who don't know OCaml, but it usually helps them, since static analysis is easier with an ML family language than say, javascript.

> We want to map the candidate to whatever language in our repository of "this question in different langs" is closest

If there's not a close language in any of your repositories for the candidate, then I think that's a good signal that candidate may not be a great fit. As mentioned before, we don't necessarily ask candidates to write OCaml, most functional languages will have a similar bug + fix.

> problem statement to debugged bug what if the problem you might normally run into is perf issues related to the language? I.e. HFTs usually use C++ and perf = $$$. I would agree that yes, those who have worked on say Rust could be good candidates, but if someone has years of experience in writing highly performant C++, and that's what the job requires, probably easier to look for those candidates.

I definitely agree with you in general, just pointing out that there are times where being familiar with the language used is desirable.