First of all, the recruitment contact is a perfect professional. Nothing described in the following text is a reflection on that person. The assignment they send you is a joke. They want you to write a production ready application in 3-4hrs. They will send you an assignment with vague requirements and seemingly free reigns to solve the tasks. In actuality, they are looking for a very specific solution and have hidden requirements (that you’ll find out later) for this assignment. If you have a requirement, then write the requirement. They also don’t seem to understand relational databases. They (rightfully) pointed out some silly mistakes and I accept them completely as my own mistakes. They also seem to have a heavy bias for their own style i.e. if you do something different that is equally valid, they will mark that as wrong. My approach was to demonstrate that I know how to do it by providing an example, not implementing every possible edge case. They seem to get stuck in details which to me shows a clear lack of understanding. I’m not going to write a production ready application as an interview assignment, I got better things to do with my time. If you really want this job, I’d suggest you ask them to clarify every single thing stated in hopes of finding the hidden requirements. Again I want to underline that the contact person who handles the recruitment is an absolute professional and I have no negative sentiments towards them.