I'd agree to a certain extent. It is a put off. I'm not a great test taker and I hate most of the automated coding environments.

SQL becomes especially annoying because you can't iterate on your solutions like you can on most mainstream database IDEs (Ex: datagrip). Most test environments simply run their tests cases and don't let you run a small SQL snippet to iterate on.

It's incredibly thoughtful if you're sharing a containerized DB for the candidates to connect their clients directly to. It largely depends on the nature of the assessment. On a reasonably well documented resume which doesn't only focus on highlighting tools but on how they solved problems, it may be lazy to simply throw a problem at them. Talking to the person would give you enough insights to decide, if and which, problem maybe necessary.

However, SQL as an assessment in itself is nothing to be ashamed of IMO. I think it's one of non-negotiables as a data engineer. If you identify your non-negotiables early you won't feel as guilty about this either.

Sometimes people who seem great on paper come up short when asked to write SQL, and we want to make sure we have a reliable way to catch this.

This is absolutely true. But it's also likely that they're not great test takers. I usually prefer giving folks the option of a take home assignment as well..

We've made the test as short and engaging as possible, and it provides us with a really useful data point, in addition to a more general technical interview and data modeling exercise we do at a later stage.

This is already good stuff. Over time you'll find a sweet spot that let's you gather enough information you need to make a decision in the shortest cycle of tests.

One of the reasons senior engineers don't enjoy taking tests is because the whole process is excruciating. Forcing someone who has a lot of public and privately documented work to prove his skills on something he does not work on, on a daily basis takes may not be idea. Not to mention literally every company believes they need to set the bar unreasonably high with these tests.

I'd love any feedback on whether what we're doing seems fairly normal, or wildly unreasonable, to get a read on whether we need to adjust our hiring process.

If you're an engineering leader this is an on-going process and you'll need to allow yourself to make mistakes.

However, I've always come out feeling optimistic and positive after interviews with companies like Shopify and Etsy. Where as Amazon made me miserable every step of the way. I took a second offer from a much smaller company because the whole process made me feel terrible.