[yupper32]

Take home tests are never just an hour. They're open ended traps designed to find out who is willing to put in unpaid overtime. The OP themselves admitted to expanding the scope of a take home test they were given by around 10x because they felt it would give them an edge.

This is what a ton of candidates end up doing, knowing that others are going to as well. Especially when the take home test could be sent to a massive number of people.

Spend a few hours with me and watch me code. Show you care. I'm not rejecting the idea of spending time coding for an interview.

[gsibble]

I'm happy to sit down with you and watch you code if you'd prefer that. Most of our candidates prefer take homes. We're willing to work with our candidates to let them show their skills however they please. I'm not 100% for take homes, it's just the preference we've seen. And we never give take homes that are actual work, god forbid.