This response in the comments: > "The test was as much about seeing if the if the candidate could deal with manually setting up the build environment without a

This response in the comments: > "The test was as much about seeing if the if the candidate could deal with manually setting up the build environment without assistance as much as it was about the coding problem itself. If the candidate couldn't get the tools installed on his own or felt insulted it wasn't his ideal IDE, then they figured the candidate would not do well as an embedded engineer on more complicated boards with even worse tool chains." In general however a take-home test voids the primary rationale for the real-time on-site coding interview, which is that it's very easy these days to complete such tests without knowing much about the material via various routes, as academic CS programs continue to demonstrate. It's also true that academic CS programs tend to be terrible when it comes to learning about tools, toolchains, build systems, virtual environments, etc. There are some efforts to change this at least: https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ https://missing.csail.mit.edu/ Even that's not that comprehensive. Searching "introduction to toolchains and complex build systems" reveals how difficult the issue is. It's the kind of thing that should probably be included in the job description.