Applied for the Senior iOS position. The initial recruiter was unable to answer basic technical or scoping questions about the role and immediately pushed a mandatory 3-day take-home assignment.
I submitted a highly structured project featuring clean, protocol-based layering and thorough unit testing coverage written with TDD pattern. The feedback received felt heavily generated by an automated AI parsing tool rather than a comprehensive human code review, focusing entirely on sandbox-level edge-case optimizations rather than overall architecture and engineering discipline.
Advice to Management / HR:
Treat senior candidates' time with respect. If you require production-grade, multi-week optimization engines (like custom concurrent request deduplication and background downsampling) within a tight 3-day window, you should evaluate this via a live system design session rather than an asynchronous assignment.
Avoid if you value your time or at least do not agree on a home assignment!