Had a great chat with the hiring manager, and was given a short & simple homework assignment.
I was promptly rejected after submitting my completed response, due to "code quality" issues, including:
- I solved part of the task using a very short one-liner because that was all that was technically sufficient to accomplish the stated goal, this wasn't enough heavy lifting for them
- I solved a second part using an 11 line method, they appear to subscribe to the 5 lines or less guideline (reasoning for 11 lines being "too long" not given)
- The irony of complaining about both of the above simultaneously was lost on them, despite having explained in detail in the comments that I was intentionally taking both approaches to demonstrate flexibility
No coding style guidelines were given, just that "code quality is very important." I consider being able to follow existing code standards a junior-level skill and would have done so if given the opportunity.
