I once did an interview with a company that wanted me to do a homework assignment. It was obvious from the problem that it wasn't just a way to find out if you

I once did an interview with a company that wanted me to do a homework assignment. It was obvious from the problem that it wasn't just a way to find out if you could code, but was a real problem the company was facing. I spent a couple hours on it, but I realized that in order to get it working and tested, it would require many more hours of work. I started peppering the code with comments like /* here I would verify the validity of the data by doing X */ to show them I knew what needed to be done without doing all the grunt work. I sent the code, but the manager got back to me and said he expected finished code that actually worked and not just pseudo code. I politely told him that I would gladly do the work if he wanted to pay me my fee I usually charge for contract work. He declined so the company did not get a bunch of free consulting work, which I think was the point of the exercise. Too many companies get away with this.