It's not about if the take homes are fun or not. Far too many companies have varied take home tests that can take an hour or a 40-hour work week only to be ghosted after submission.
I don't partake in any asymmetric interview processes, and many places are happy to let me skip it. I'm happy to sit on a zoom call with one of your engineers for a couple of hours and do whatever they want me code in that time. I'm just not into doing it on my own time with no cost to the interviewer.
Yup! The interviewer can see my thought process. I can also evaluate my peers and ask questions about the work. The interviewer can also see how easy or cumbersome it is to set up the environment and code in the allotted time. Win-win.
It's not about what's useful to you. Not everything has to be about you. It's acknowledgement that the interviewee's time is worth something (approximately about as much as dev time) and that you're willing to pay for it.
