Live coding or take-home test for a remote role

Choose the take-home, but make communication visible rather than assuming the reviewer will infer it. State questions you would ask, assumptions you made, and how you’d hand off unfinished work. The main risk is producing polished code that only demonstrates solo execution, unless the assessment forbids supplementary documentation.

A live session sounds more collaborative, but the useful choice is the format that exposes your strongest working habit. Choose the take-home if you can include a concise decision log and questions you would have raised; otherwise choose live coding to show real-time clarification.

The four-hour take-home is closer to your stated strength: documenting decisions. But don’t assume it demonstrates remote collaboration by itself. A take-home mainly shows how you work alone; collaboration is visible in how you clarify scope, state assumptions, and explain tradeoffs.

Choose it if you can submit a short README covering setup, decisions, known limits, and what you’d ask a teammate before extending it. Send one or two focused clarification questions if the process allows. A useful line is: “I chose X because Y; I’d revisit it if Z became a requirement.”

Pick the live session only if the role depends heavily on real-time pairing, incident response, or frequent synchronous design work. The caveat is that a four-hour assessment can be a poor signal if the company expects unpaid production-quality work.