# Overview: How Qualen evaluates engineers

A Qualen assessment puts candidates inside an actual engineering workflow: they read a real codebase, review a pull request, leave comments on bugs, refactors, and security risks, and then iterate as an AI responds to their feedback and opens a revised PR. This loop runs until the session timer expires, producing a rich record of how each candidate thinks and communicates as an engineer — not just whether they can reverse a linked list. 
 ​ What makes a Qualen assessment different 
 Qualen assessments are grounded in real engineering work — reading a codebase, reviewing a PR, and iterating based on feedback — rather than puzzle-solving under pressure. Candidates engage with the kind of material they would encounter on their first week on the job: existing code with real tradeoffs, real ambiguity, and real consequences. The result is signal your team can discuss with confidence, anchored in observable behavior rather than abstract scoring. 
 ​ Assessment structure 
 Each assessment follows the same four-step loop, repeated until time expires: 
 
 Read the codebase  — The candidate explores the repository to understand the project’s structure, patterns, and conventions. 
 Review the pull request  — The candidate leaves inline comments identifying bugs, refactor opportunities, security risks, and other concerns, just as they would in a real code review. 
 Receive an AI revision  — Qualen’s AI processes the candidate’s comments and opens a fresh PR revision that responds to their feedback. 
 Iterate  — The candidate reviews the revised PR, refines earlier comments, and adds new observations. This loop continues until the session ends. 
 
 ​ Configuration options 
 You control three axes when creating an assessment. Together, they let you target the exact bar your team is hiring for. 
 Option What it controls Difficulty Codebase complexity and expected review depth. Ranges from Intern to Principal — each level calibrates how subtle the issues are and how deep the AI’s revisions go. Specialization Engineering domain. Options include Frontend, Backend, Infrastructure, Networking, Core Database, Performance, Distributed Systems, Data Pipelines, Security, Platform, Systems, and APIs. The codebase and PR content reflect the chosen domain. Language surface Which programming languages appear in the assessment. Restrict to one or two languages for specialist roles, or allow a broader mix for generalist hiring loops. 
 ​ What you receive 
 When a candidate completes a session, Qualen generates a scorecard that captures how they performed across the full review loop. The scorecard shows: 
 
 Reasoning quality  — how accurately the candidate identified real issues versus noise 
 Prioritization  — whether they led with the most critical problems or buried them in minor nits 
 Iteration behavior  — how their feedback evolved across PR revisions, including whether they incorporated responses thoughtfully 
 Communication  — the clarity, specificity, and professionalism of their written comments 
 
 You receive a structured record you can share with your hiring panel, compare across candidates, and use as a foundation for a debrief conversation. 
 Create an Assessment Set up a new assessment from the dashboard in minutes. Customize Your Configuration Tune difficulty, specialization, and language surface for any role. Invite Candidates Send assessment links directly or through your connected ATS. Scorecards & Reporting Understand the output Qualen produces after each session.