Developer Builds Custom Skill-Assessment Engine With Anti-Cheat for Hiring Platform

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A developer building HireLyf, an early-access hiring platform, has shared details about the core assessment engine powering the product. The system delivers a 40-question, 20-minute test divided into four 10-question sections, drawing dynamically from a question bank covering SQL, Python, React, DSA, and coding. The engine was designed to evaluate job readiness without relying on a third-party proctoring vendor. Anti-cheat calibration required multiple iterations to minimize false flags against honest candidates. The platform is currently available for free during its early-access period.

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IBM-Born Docling Library Converts PDFs and Docs into Clean AI-Ready Data

Docling is an open-source Python library originally created by IBM Research Zurich and now maintained under the LF AI & Data Foundation, designed to convert messy documents into structured, AI-ready output. It supports a wide range of input formats — including PDF, DOCX, PPTX, images, and even audio — and exports everything into a unified internal format that can be rendered as Markdown, HTML, or JSON. Unlike basic text extractors, Docling uses machine learning models to detect page layout, preserve reading order, and accurately reconstruct tables and code blocks, with OCR support for scanned files. The library integrates directly with popular AI frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, and Haystack, making it easy to plug into existing RAG pipelines. It runs entirely locally with no data leaving the user's machine, though its ML-based approach means a heavier install and slower CPU performance on large document batches compared to lightweight alternatives.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

Developer Builds 47 MB Bootable Tool to Test Laptop Keyboards Without an OS

A laptop refurbisher and repair technician built KbdCheck, a minimal bootable Linux tool, after finding existing keyboard-testing solutions either required a working OS or were bloated with unnecessary features. Based on Arch Linux, the ISO weighs just 47 MB and runs directly from a USB drive without installing anything or modifying the host system. The interface displays a full keyboard layout and highlights each key as it is pressed, making it easy to identify faulty, stuck, or mis-mapped keys; a basic mouse test is also included. Because it operates independently of any installed operating system, it rules out software-level issues such as driver faults or accessibility settings that could otherwise mimic hardware failures. KbdCheck requires Secure Boot to be disabled and is available as a downloadable ISO with a SHA-256 checksum for integrity verification.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

Green Tests, Zero Assurance: How Silent Failures Fool CI Pipelines

A software developer has documented three real-world cases where test suites reported passing results despite never actually validating code. In one instance, a test function contained only a 'pass' statement, while in another, 57 of 65 assertion files were misformatted, causing the harness to execute zero assertions yet return a green result. In a third case, CauterRule v0.3.0 showed 1,558 passing tests while a critical HTTP bearer-auth guard silently failed due to a swallowed import, only discovered through a Docker field test. The author argues the real danger is not the bugs themselves but the false confidence a green suite creates. The proposed fix involves meta-tests that explicitly verify a non-zero number of assertions were parsed and executed, treating a 0/0 result as a failure rather than a pass.

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ProgrammingDEV Community ·

Stanford Data Shows 20% Drop in Junior Developer Hiring Since 2022

A 2025 Stanford Digital Economy Lab analysis of payroll data found that employment among software developers aged 22–25 fell nearly 20% from its late-2022 peak. Over the same period, developers aged 30 and older saw their employment grow, even in roles highly exposed to AI. Analysts caution that the decline has multiple causes, including post-pandemic over-hiring corrections and rising interest rates, making a simple 'AI killed junior jobs' narrative an oversimplification. The pattern does, however, suggest that pressure is concentrated at the entry level, where tasks tend to be well-defined and low-context — the type of work AI tools now handle cheaply. With roughly 84% of developers already using AI tools per the 2025 Stack Overflow survey, career experts argue the most effective response is to develop judgment, domain ownership, and contextual expertise rather than competing on task execution alone.

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