How to politely decline a take-home test task
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I recently applied for a software engineering job and the company responded back with a take-home test task which, in their words, should take between 2 to 3 hours.
Currently, I'm about 2 and a half hours in, trying to get my virtual environment to run the baseline code they provided. I then have to proceed to write my own code for the functionality they require. I was thinking about declining the test task, stating that I spent around 2 to 3 hours setting up the virtual environment in which the baseline code is to be run and that I am not willing to invest more time in the take-home test task given that I have other obligations. I will also state that they can check out some of the previous code I have written on my GitHub.
"The risk" I run here is that I look incapable in their eyes, but I have really given my best effort into this and I think it's either the case that the company was unrealistic regarding their time estimate or I am not the job candidate that can solve the test task in 2-3 hours.
