Of course from their perspective I could be getting someone else to do it for me or something. Or maybe the take-home leaked (which becomes more probable as the company grows).
At my current employer, that’s exactly how we approach hiring. I send the candidate a take-home that broadly covers the basic tech skills they need to be effective in their role (implement a simple test api, some questions about scaling web apps in production, and a possible architecture sketch for a described system). It’s expected to be around 4 hours of work. If they pass that, the interview is free of technical topics - we just talk about your past experience and assess whether you’d be a good fit for the team.
Is this not how other take-home assignments work?
I'm interested to know who your employer is, if you're comfortable saying.