Go attracts people who like small surfaces and fast builds. Juniors should show the same bias: explicit error handling, readable packages, and tests that run in CI.
Hire for idioms and delivery habits, not slideshows about goroutines.
1. Modules and project layout
They understand Go modules, semantic import versioning at a basic level, and clean package boundaries. Random GOPATH folklore without module clarity is a yellow flag in 2026.
2. Go fmt, naming, and small APIs
Predictable formatting, exported vs unexported identifiers, and functions that read like sentences. Your reviewers should spend time on design, not reformatting.
3. Testing with go test
Table-driven tests when appropriate, subtests, benchmarks only when they mean it, and -race awareness if you ship concurrent code. Tests that never run in automation do not count.
4. Interfaces used for seams, not theater
They define interfaces where consumers need them, accept interfaces and return concrete types in the common case, and avoid “interface everything” designs that obscure behavior.
5. Concurrency you can reason about
Goroutines and channels with a clear owner for cancellation and errors. Juniors should defer mutex tricks until they respect data races. You want readable parallelism first.
Screen fairly and compare apples to apples
Keep exercises and scoring consistent across candidates. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reminds small employers to apply consistent standards to applicants for the same role (EEOC hiring guidance).
Hiring Automation can route qualified Go juniors to the right stage the moment your criteria match. Canvider CriteriaMatch enforces must-haves before anyone opens a calendar.
Next step: Explore Hiring Automation, Explore CriteriaMatch, then get started free.