I generally agree with this, as an interviewer. You need to be explicit about what you're screening for, unless you're trying to hire a mind reader.
E.g. "this is a one-off report" and "ok, how would you do it differently if we wanted to turn this into a feature at scale?"
It's great if an engineer gets there on their own, but there are so many tangents one could go on that I won't ding someone for picking the wrong one, or asking for the most relevant one.
I would expect seniors not to need that level of guidance on the job, with the caveat that expectations should be reasonably set in design docs, tickets, various bits of context, etc.
E.g. "this is a one-off report" and "ok, how would you do it differently if we wanted to turn this into a feature at scale?"
It's great if an engineer gets there on their own, but there are so many tangents one could go on that I won't ding someone for picking the wrong one, or asking for the most relevant one.
I would expect seniors not to need that level of guidance on the job, with the caveat that expectations should be reasonably set in design docs, tickets, various bits of context, etc.