"I could definitely have improved it significantly with 6 hours. But I don't believe anyone, applying for an e-commerce programming job at a major online retail

"I could definitely have improved it significantly with 6 hours. But I don't believe anyone, applying for an e-commerce programming job at a major online retailer, would have done significantly better with 4 hours, this leads me to conclude that people are maybe doing 6 hours or more." I've done many coding tasks over the years and I never limited myself to 4 hours. This is to showcase your abilities. Make it the best you possibly can, without over-engineering it. I think only once did I not get the job. "Has this amount of time gone up in recent years? Or in the last few months due to the economy." No, but you didn't get the job, so you need to do better. "I'm also wondering, and here it may you want to just send me messages privately on this, but are you married and has marriage/kids affected your time on programming assignments (as I am thinking about particular legal challenges, in an EU context, to the legality of programming assignments - if it turns out I have to spend 8 hours per assignment nowadays I'd rather mount a legal challenge)" A legal challenge? I would never hire you. Good luck.