What Is CoderPad and How Does It Work?

CoderPad is a browser-based coding environment that employers use in two different ways, and the invitation you received tells you which. CoderPad Interview is a live, shared editor called a pad, with an interviewer typing alongside you and a keystroke-level replay saved afterward. CoderPad Screen is a timed, unattended assessment that produces a scored report with its own playback. As of September 9, 2026, both run in a normal browser, neither installs software, and both record everything typed into the editor. That is the short version. The rest of this article separates the two products, because most confusion about CoderPad comes from mixing them up.

CoderPad Interview: a live pad with a person on the other end

A pad is the unit of a CoderPad interview. CoderPad's candidate preparation guide describes it plainly: "A pad is similar to common Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). You write code in the left-hand pane, run code with the 'Run' button, and view output in the right-hand pane." The interviewer is in the same pad, sees your cursor, and can edit too.

You do not need an account. CoderPad's FAQ states that "Candidates never have to register or pay to participate in an interview." You open the link, choose a language, and start.

The editor supports "over 60 programming languages" according to the code editor documentation, with enhanced support and autocomplete for Ruby, Python 3, JavaScript, Java, C, C++, C#, Swift, Kotlin, and TypeScript. Pads can hold multi-file frontend or backend projects, a shell, a Zoom-powered video call, an Excalidraw whiteboard called Drawing Mode, and an AI Assist panel that the interviewer can switch on or off.

What a pad records

This is the part candidates most often underestimate. CoderPad's playback documentation says that "During an interview, the Interview platform keeps track of every keystroke of every participant within a pad." After the interviewer ends the session, a playback shows the code being typed in order, with a yellow dot wherever content was pasted from outside the pad and an orange dot wherever the browser lost focus, labelled with the duration, for example "Clicked away for 19 seconds."

The pad summary adds attendance, talk time per participant, code runs, and a suspicious-behavior section. If AI Assist was on, "All pad users' prompts and AI output will be saved for review in playback mode," per the AI Assist documentation. What is not in the playback: shell commands, and the video call itself, which CoderPad documents as opt-in on both sides and does not document as recorded. The details are in whether CoderPad records your screen.

CoderPad Screen: a timed test with no one watching live

Screen is the assessment product. You get a link, a time limit per question, and a mix of question types. CoderPad's Screen preparation guide notes that multiple-choice questions come "With only several seconds to answer," programming questions get minutes or longer, and "If the question times out, you do not fail the question automatically; the code is immediately submitted at the time out."

Screen has controls that Interview does not, because no interviewer is present. The Screen cheating prevention documentation states that "Candidates must enter full-screen mode before starting the test. If they exit full-screen mode or switch to another monitor, an alert will trigger after a 10-second grace period." Questions can be drawn from randomized blocks, the question statement can be made un-copyable, and on enterprise plans a recruiter can request optional webcam snapshots. Screen also has its own code playback, with a red marker on every paste and grey markers for time spent outside the test.

You will not automatically see your score. The candidate guide says "Your recruiter is the only one who can decide whether to send your score to you or not." Which of these controls counts as proctoring, and which product uses which, is laid out in whether CoderPad is proctored.

Interview vs Screen at a glance

The table summarizes the same point twice: the editor records, the surrounding controls differ.

How to prepare for either one

The free sandbox at app.coderpad.io/sandbox runs the same editor as a live pad, so you can learn the run shortcut, the language list, and the settings before anyone is watching. How far the sandbox goes, and what it cannot rehearse, is covered in how to practice in the CoderPad sandbox. For the question formats and a test-day checklist, the CoderPad interview format and preparation guide is the fuller treatment.

What this means for candidates

Work out which product you are in from the invitation, then assume everything typed into the editor is kept and can be replayed. In Interview, the person across from you also sees a paste or a focus loss as an alert, and CoderPad tells them to "Treat alerts as prompts for clarification, not immediate disqualification." In Screen, the same events sit in a report next to a plagiarism check. Read the rules the employer attached to the link, ask in writing if AI or references are allowed, and if they are not, prepare with them beforehand and take the session on your own.