Have them show you and talk about what they built. If they are not curious and building side projects, doing open source for excitement and making an app for a friend's business, their family member or some passion project, to me that's a red flag.

We are in a new age when the barrier to building is literally the lowest it's ever been. If your GitHub still is a dead graveyard fix that immediately.

I have over 2k commits in 2026 alone and I'm not even an IC anymore. Not including my work account.

I have like 12 side projects being built usually, working on 3-4 in parallel. A few are open source and growing.

All of this has helped me learn at a crazy rate. If your candidate is still just slogging 9-5, doing stand-ups then clocking out without anything extra.... That's all you need to know.

Curious, self learning, high potential people with a track record and good communication skills. That's it.