See how candidates wouldroute failed payments.
CTRL is a technical assessment platform where applicants solve realistic scenarios based on your company's work. See how they think, what they prioritise, and how their solution performs before you commit to another interview.
Assessments for real-world work
How it works
Give candidates a problem
that feels like the job.
Candidates create the rules that guide a changing scenario. CTRL runs those rules and shows you the outcome, decision by decision. The example below is deliberately simple: move one rule and the same solution stops working.
What the agent sees
Instructions · checked in order
- 1
WHEN right is clear DO turn right, then advance
- 2
WHEN path ahead is clear DO advance
- 3
WHEN otherwise DO turn left
01
Set the scenario
Choose a familiar business problem or shape one around your own work.
02
Invite candidates
Applicants build a solution instead of answering another abstract question.
03
Run the solution
The scenario changes and reveals how each candidate's decisions hold up.
04
Review the evidence
Compare their approach, priorities, results, and ability to adapt.
Why use CTRL
Make better shortlists
with less interview work.
Hiring time
Less
time spent interviewing candidates without enough evidence
Use CTRL before interviews to narrow a large applicant pool, or later in the process when you need stronger proof. Your team spends its time with candidates who have already shown how they approach relevant work.
Relevance
Real
workplace scenarios instead of generic coding puzzles
A bank can assess payment routing. A delivery company can assess dispatch decisions. You can also test common skills such as managing queues, priorities, limited resources, and changing requirements.
Evidence
Clear
insight into how each candidate reached their result
Two candidates can reach the same answer in very different ways. CTRL shows the decisions behind the result, giving your team a more useful basis for shortlisting, interviewing, and comparing applicants.
What we offer companies
Everything you need to assess
real ability, before the interview.
Assessments from your own work
Start from a common operational problem or shape one around your stack, tickets, and domain. Candidates work on something that looks like the job — not a sorting puzzle.
Process signal, not just output
Every run records the decisions behind the result: what the candidate observed, which rule fired, and how they adapted when conditions changed. You see how they think, not only whether the tests went green.
Configurable scoring
A deterministic harness checks correctness for the specific scenario, and configurable graders evaluate qualitative dimensions like efficiency, simplicity, and robustness — every judgement tied to the decision that earned it.
Shareable candidate reports
Each submission compiles into a report your team can compare consistently and reviewers can open in seconds — with a replay of the run and the reasoning behind it.
Fits the pipeline you already run
Use it as an early screen to narrow a large applicant pool, a skills stage in place of a take-home, or a final exercise before an interview. Nothing about your process has to change.
Custom scenarios for your domain
A bank can assess payment routing; a logistics team, dispatch. We work with you to turn a problem your team understands into an assessment candidates can pick up and solve.
How teams roll it out
01
Tell us the role
Share the role and the kind of work it involves.
02
We shape the assessment
We turn a relevant problem into a scored scenario.
03
Send it to candidates
They solve it in blocks, plain steps, or code.
04
Review the evidence
Compare reports and decisions, then interview with focus.
Flexible assessment format
Test the skill you need.
Not just code recall.
Match the assessment to the role. Candidates can arrange visual blocks, describe their approach in plain steps, or write real code. Every format controls the same scenario, so you can focus on the choices and skills that matter for the job.
Focus on reasoning without testing syntax.
Assessment scenarios
Start with a common problem.
Make it relevant to your company.
Some challenges appear everywhere: deciding what comes first, managing a queue, or working with limited time and resources. CTRL can also turn a process from your own industry into an assessment candidates can understand and solve.
Banking & payments
LiveReliability · cost · recovery
Ask candidates to route payments across different providers, respond when a channel fails, and balance speed, cost, and reliability.
Parking operations
LiveMatching · capacity · priority
Ask candidates to place arriving vehicles, match each one to the right space, and protect priority access as spaces fill and free up.
Drone search
LiveSearch · planning · limited battery
Ask candidates to program a drone that sweeps unknown ground, finds a target, and reports it before the battery runs out.
Simple decisions
LiveConditions · rule order · fallbacks
A gentle warm-up: sort each arriving item into the right place with one or two rules. Good for checking the basics before a harder problem.
Warehouse operations
CustomPriorities · workload · resources
Ask candidates to assign incoming orders, manage limited resources, and keep work moving as demand and availability change.
Customer support
CustomQueues · urgency · fairness
Ask candidates to organise incoming requests, identify what needs attention first, and prevent important cases from being overlooked.
Delivery operations
CustomAssignment · timing · change
Ask candidates to match drivers with orders while customer promises, traffic, availability, and priorities keep changing.
Shared software problems
CustomQueues · priorities · capacity
Assess the everyday thinking behind software systems, even when the scenario is not tied to one industry or department.
Your company's scenario
CustomYour work · your priorities
Shape an assessment around a problem your team understands and give applicants a realistic view of the work they are joining.
Where CTRL fits
Add useful evidence
at any stage of hiring.
First stage
Give every applicant a fair first chance.
Add a practical screen before interviews. See who can understand the problem, make sensible choices, and produce a working result before your team reviews a long list of CVs.
Skills stage
Replace the generic take-home task.
Use a guided, consistent scenario that is closer to the role. Candidates know what is being assessed, and reviewers get comparable evidence from every submission.
Final stage
Go into the interview with better questions.
Review a candidate's decisions beforehand, then use the interview to explore their trade-offs, assumptions, and improvements instead of starting from scratch.
High-volume hiring
Create more signal without creating more interviews.
Run the same relevant assessment across a large applicant pool and compare results consistently. Your hiring team can focus its effort where it is most useful.
For hiring teams
Make your next technical assessment
feel like the work.
Join the private beta and tell us about the roles you hire for. We'll help you turn a relevant problem into an assessment with clearer hiring evidence.
FAQ
Questions,
answered.
What is CTRL?
CTRL is a technical assessment platform. Instead of giving applicants a generic coding question, you place them in a realistic scenario and ask them to build the decision-making logic that keeps it working. You can then review both their result and how they approached the problem.
Why not use a standard coding test?
Standard tests are useful for checking whether someone can produce a correct answer. CTRL adds context: candidates must understand a changing situation, decide what matters, and build a solution that continues to work. That gives you evidence about judgement and problem-solving as well as technical ability.
Can the assessment reflect our company?
Yes. A financial company might use payment routing, while a logistics company might use delivery assignment. Assessments can also cover common problems such as queues, priorities, capacity, and changing requirements. The goal is to test familiar skills in a context that matters to your team.
What does the hiring team get to review?
You see whether the solution worked, how efficiently it performed, and the decisions that produced the outcome. That record helps reviewers compare candidates consistently and gives interviewers specific choices and trade-offs to discuss.
Where does CTRL fit in our hiring process?
It can be an early screen, a practical skills stage, or a final exercise before an interview. Use it early to reduce the number of applications your team reviews manually, or later when you need more confidence before making a decision.
Does it replace interviews?
No. It makes them more useful. CTRL gives your team evidence before the conversation, so interviewers can spend less time confirming basic ability and more time understanding the candidate's reasoning, experience, and fit for the role.
How does another assessment save us time and cost?
The assessment adds a step for candidates, but reduces repeated work for your hiring team. A consistent first-stage screen can narrow a large applicant pool before interviews begin. Used later, it can prevent extra interview rounds by giving the team clearer evidence sooner.
When does access open?
CTRL is opening to companies in small private-beta cohorts. Join the waitlist and tell us about the roles you hire for and the kind of scenario you would want applicants to solve.