Case Study
How ALTEN made CoderPad its technical hiring standard — and took it global
Delivering Verified Talent Across the Technology Consulting Sector
ALTEN uses CoderPad to deliver a recognized, reliable skills signal directly to demanding enterprise partners.
1,000+ monthly assessments
10+ years of platform adoption
60,000+ employees across 30+ countries
ALTEN is a global engineering and technology consulting company with approximately 60,000 employees across more than 30 countries. In France alone, Stéphane Dahan, Head of Recruitment, France, oversees roughly 3,000–4,000 engineering hires each year.
ALTEN has used CoderPad for more than a decade. Before CoderPad, assessing developers relied heavily on technical experts. That limited scale and made it harder to apply a consistent standard across candidates.
CoderPad gave ALTEN an objective skills signal that recruiters could use without relying on a technical expert for every assessment.
CoderPad helps us recruit better. It helps us understand the quality of the candidate and make the right decision.
ALTEN has all of its developer candidates complete assessments to establish benchmarks, help the team understand a candidate’s level, where they’ll fit best, and where they may need additional training.
A skills signal ALTEN’s customers already trust
As an engineering consulting company, ALTEN doesn’t just need to assess talent for itself. Its customers need to trust the quality of that talent, too.
Some of ALTEN’s largest French customers already used CoderPad. That gave the platform immediate credibility.
ALTEN can run customer-specific assessments in CoderPad and share results with customers already familiar with the platform.
CoderPad makes it easy for us to speak the same language as our customers. It is a tool that is universally known and trusted by our clients.
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Easy enough for any recruiter to use
Stéphane isn't a developer. That's part of the point.
Recruiters can choose an assessment, send it to a candidate, and understand the result without needing a technical expert beside them.
I’m not technical, and I can use CoderPad very easily. I can choose the right test for the right engineer, and so can my recruitment team.
The same goes for customization. When customers bring ALTEN their own technical assessments, Stéphane can build them in CoderPad himself.
And with the SmartRecruiters integration, recruiters can send assessments and see scores directly from their ATS.
A product that sells itself internally
CoderPad started with Stéphane's organization in France. It didn't stay there.
As other ALTEN teams looked to improve technical assessment, Stéphane became what he calls “the CoderPad sponsor in ALTEN.”
His pitch is simple: show them the product.
I share my screen and do a demonstration. That’s the best way, because the product is so easy to use. People just see it and they love it.
Recruiters see how quickly they can launch an assessment. Technical teams take the tests themselves and see the depth of the skills signal firsthand.
That approach has helped CoderPad expand to ALTEN teams in Germany, Sweden, Italy, Morocco, and more.
A candidate experience developers actually enjoy
For Stéphane, candidate experience is a critical part of the hiring process.
CoderPad gives candidates a way to show their skills in an experience that feels engaging rather than like a traditional exam. They also receive feedback on their performance, giving them something useful from the process regardless of the outcome.
They are delighted to take the test and receive feedback on their performance. It’s easy to use, it’s friendly — it’s like a game for developers.
That matters to Stéphane just as much as the signal ALTEN gets back. As he puts it: “I have to take care of my candidates.”
What's next: From developer skills to AI skills
ALTEN is now exploring how to apply the same approach to AI skills.
As the company hires more AI engineers — and AI becomes part of more roles — Stéphane sees an opportunity to assess generative AI, agentic AI, and how candidates work with tools like Mistral and OpenAI.
CoderPad Projects opens up another way to do that. Instead of evaluating candidates through individual questions, ALTEN can see how developers approach more realistic work — from code quality and architecture to problem-solving and how they work with AI.
Project mode is very interesting because it’s not just a test. You can understand how someone works on a project — the quality and structure of the code, the architecture and how they approach the work.
More than a decade of better technical hiring
More than a decade after ALTEN first adopted CoderPad, the reason it continues to expand is simple: it gives ALTEN a skills signal recruiters can use, technical teams trust, customers recognize, and candidates enjoy.
And as the skills ALTEN hires for evolve, the principle stays the same: don't rely on what candidates say they can do. Give them the opportunity to show it.