ArchlifyFor businessSystem design screening before you pull in your seniors
Candidates design the architecture under a timer and defend their own diagram in 3 questions. You get a ranking with scores by dimension, plus each candidate's diagram and defense. They get feedback.
1 hiring process with up to 10 candidates. No credit card.
The score is a recommendation; the decision is yours.
| # | Candidate | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marina Alves | 8.4 |
| 2 | Rafael Souza | 7.6 |
| 3 | Juliana Costa Left the tab 2× · 3 min | 6.9 |
| 4 | Pedro Lima Submitted by timer | 5.1 |
Technical screening is expensive and the cost hides in your team's calendar.
Senior hours away from the product
If each system design interview takes 1.5 hours of a senior's time between the conversation, notes and debrief, 10 candidates add up to 15 hours per role. Plug in your own numbers in the calculator below.
Every interviewer grades differently
Different questions and criteria that live in the interviewer's head make it hard to compare candidates side by side.
Candidates never hear back
Candidates often leave without knowing what was missing. That hurts your employer brand and word of mouth in the community.
Three steps, nothing to install
Pick the challenge and deadline
There are 24 interview challenges, from junior to staff, lasting 20 to 85 minutes. You read the full statement and see the evaluated dimensions before choosing.
Invite your candidates
Paste the e-mails. Each candidate starts whenever they want before the deadline, designs on the canvas under a timer and answers 3 questions about their own design.
Compare and decide
A ranking with scores by dimension, the diagram, the explanation and the defense answers. Your team only interviews who moves forward.
A ranking you can check
No score stands alone: every number comes with the design and the reasoning behind it.
- Final score weighted 70% diagram and 30% defense
- Scores by dimension, with each one's weight in the chosen challenge
- Full diagram, explanation and defense answers for every candidate
- Flags worth a closer look: submitted by timer, no defense answers, different account e-mail, left the tab, pasted text and copied from the statement
If the worker crashes right after charging the card, how do you prevent the same payment from being processed twice?
I store the idempotency key before calling the provider. On retry, the worker checks that key and only confirms the status, without charging again.
Every evaluated candidate gets feedback
Even those who don't move forward learn where they did well and where to improve, dimension by dimension.
Clear rules before starting
Duration, deadline and what the company will see are spelled out in the invitation. The challenge only appears when the candidate decides to start.
Feedback by dimension
When the process closes, every evaluated candidate gets their score and detailed feedback. Never their position in the ranking.
Free Archlify account
Candidates create their account from the invitation and can keep practicing system design afterwards.
Built to make shortcuts harder
Server-side timer
Time is controlled by our server, not the browser. When time is up, the last saved work is what counts.
Statement only after starting
Nobody sees the challenge before the timer starts.
Defense of their own design
The 3 questions are generated on the spot from the candidate's diagram, with 15 minutes to answer.
One attempt per invitation
Each invitation is good for one attempt, and the account used is recorded for you.
Tab exits recorded
You see how many times and for how long the candidate left the tab or window during the design and the defense. Exits under 2 seconds don't count.
Pastes and copies recorded
We record how many characters the candidate pastes into the explanation and answers, and copies from the statement. Never the content.
Tab exits, pastes and copies are signals to review, not proof, and they don't change the score. Candidates are told before they start. There is no webcam or screen recording: use the ranking to decide who reaches the final interview with your team.
How much senior time you get back
Adjust the numbers to your team.
Estimate: (candidates − finalists) × hours per candidate × hourly cost. The starting values are illustrative and the math does not subtract Archlify's price.
Start with a free pilot
- 1 hiring process
- Up to 10 evaluated candidates
- Ranking, full review and feedback for candidates
- No credit card
Frequently asked questions
No. The score is a recommendation. A person on your team always makes the call, with each candidate's diagram, explanation and defense in front of them.
Candidates give explicit consent when accepting the invitation and see, before starting, what your company will see. Other companies and other candidates have no access to the answers in your process. The evaluation is done by an AI model.
Yes, a free one. They create it from the invitation link and go straight into the assessment, with no setup.
Not yet. Today you choose one of the 24 interview challenges in the catalog, each with its own evaluation criteria.
The server-side timer and the defense of their own diagram reduce that risk. Tab exits, pasted text and copies from the statement are recorded as signals in each candidate's evaluation, but there is no webcam, and a second device, such as a phone, won't show up. Use the ranking to choose who reaches the final interview, where your team goes deeper.
English, Portuguese and Spanish. You choose the language of the process, and the statement, questions and feedback come out in it.
The challenge duration, 20 to 85 minutes depending on the level, plus 15 minutes for the 3 defense questions.
Screen candidates for your next engineering role with Archlify
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