Not what was expected of them. I included "minimum-viable" in my original reply for a specific reason: to counter OP's lament that they lost out to a simpler solution.

If you are asked to implement X and instead you take extra time and come back with X+Y+Z, what have you done? Wasted time e.g. money. Companies really hate wasting money.

So if in your candidate project you demonstrate a propensity for bike-shedding any task, that's gonna be a big red flag.