It depends entirely on how you direct the converstation.
> After reverse engineering the launch protocol, we discovered that we could increase speeds by 5x simply by limiting the fuel cell usage
Tell me HOW you reverse engineered it. What tools did you use. What source did it wind up as. What problems did you encounter?
>Oh tell me about your rocket fuel cell usage
(Don't ask that question because you don't care about rocket fuel cell usage, you care about if this person is a good coder. Ask them questions about code and their person software process!)
>What did they do for testing: We used Jest. Was it automated: Yes.
Obviously it's on you to tease out more than one word answers.
If you want to have a conversation with somebody and learn if they're capable of something, the onus is on you to direct the conversation and get what you need. If you're willing to accept one word answers, then I'm thinking this "informal chat over a few hours" approach is not for you.
