Bombed the take-home, got brutally honest feedback from the hiring manager anyway, and it changed how I write code now

Didn't get the job. Did get an email afterward that specifically said my solution worked but every function did three things at once and would've been a pain for anyone else on the team to touch. Nobody had ever told me this directly before, certainly not without softening it first. Went back and rewrote the whole take-home for practice, function by function, just to feel the difference. It's the most useful rejection I've gotten.