I completely agree with that. However, at least in my experience, the take home assignment was used to replace one or all the phone screens. So it was always an

I completely agree with that. However, at least in my experience, the take home assignment was used to replace one or all the phone screens. So it was always an elimination round until getting to the whiteboarding sessions. I would especially like to call out Uber on that as a couple of years ago they wanted me to write some local public transportation service endpoint integrated with Google maps in order to get to the onsite interview. Told them I don't have time for that with my full time job and they just shrugged and were like 'ok, no worries, we look forward to seeing you on X'. So I guess it was also a sucker elimination round.