[bruce511]

The context is also radically different.

Let's say I come up with an assignment and I pass it to a junior to see how long it takes. The junior does the work, likely reports the time rounded down, but also with no stakes. Jim job is secure.

As an interviewee you're gonna spend time polishing the code. Every variable well named, lots of comments, good functions, well considered parameter order etc. It's gonna take longer because , for you, the stakes are higher. You'll likely build some code to test it, and so on.

This is before we discuss domain knowledge that the junior had, and also that the company implemented the task in the first place and didn't just spitball the time expected.

[sgerenser]

Yeah I’d be very surprised if even half of take home assignments were “tested” on juniors vs just having time estimates spitballed. You know, like every dev does when asked “so how long do you think this ticket will take to implement?”

[deredede]

With the unfortunate difference that when estimating a ticket you will have to complete, most people have learned to give safe over-estimates, but they don't want to look bad when a prospective hire complete the job in 1/4 the time estimate...