I found the assessment process extremely unfair because the standard (production level) used to assess the code task only became clear after the decision had already been made. The technical challenge document did not state that a production-level submission was expected. In the staff interview, the task was described as producing a functional solution that met the core requirements, and I submitted a working solution on that basis.
After rejection, the feedback focused on production-level concerns such as additional unit test coverage and the use of System.out instead of a configured Spring logger. Some of these are valid engineering points, but they reflect a production-level expectation that was not clearly communicated before submission.
The submitted code was functioning correctly, had a clear structure, and included core unit tests for the main requirements. My concern is not that engineering standards were applied, but that the expected level of depth was not made clear before the task was assessed.
I later raised this as a fairness concern and explained that the assessment criteria had not been clearly communicated, but that concern was dismissed rather than meaningfully addressed. Overall, the experience was disappointing because the standard used to judge the task became clear only after the outcome had already been decided.
