[throwaway81523]

I'm happy with the idea of a pairing exercise. I've felt regretful about every time I've gotten involved with a take-home even when my submission was successful, so maybe that's why I'm reacting badly to it here. You mention scoping, but there really has to be a way to enforce that other candidates don't spend more time on it than you do. Otherwise it is a resource consumption contest.

[the_watcher]

I agree - I have regretted every time that I agreed to a take home assignment, including when it’s been successful. The reason this worked was the HM simply sent me the assignment and asked me to take a look (and clarified that there’d be no hard feelings if I decided not to move forward). I took a look, and it turned out they weren’t lying about it being well scoped!