If you’re hiring, and your candidate produces a solution to a real problem, and your interviewers actually want to use their solution, that person is getting an

If you’re hiring, and your candidate produces a solution to a real problem, and your interviewers actually want to use their solution, that person is getting an offer unless they were absolutely obnoxious and terrible to work with. Failure to do so is just bad recruitment. Or, put differently: if I’m the candidate and they end up “stealing” my solution, that’s a small price to pay to avoid working in what is likely a terrible environment.