Your td;dr: should go at the top. Having started working at a company that asked me to do one of these, it was different specifically in that it was paid. This

Your td;dr: should go at the top. Having started working at a company that asked me to do one of these, it was different specifically in that it was paid. This means it's not a waste of anyone's time. A time-constrained, feature-rich project shows a number of things about a programmer including how they handle pressure, how they prioritize their tasks, whether their estimates are reasonable, and whether they know about what you're hiring them for.