You might not have gone thru big tech interviews before. A lot of companies have the same coding standards for MLE as SWE, so interviews are conducted by SWEs across functions. That will be 1 or 2 coding interviews out of 5 or 6 total.

Every company will allow you to interview in Python, but the point is that a C++ nerd might gatekeep. Maybe the interviewer thinks the hash function in your python dict is really critical for a deep dive. "This noob doesn't understand basic data structures."

I got failed on a coding interview when I used a dict to represent some data, and I could have used an array/list instead. (The only reason I know about that is because the recruiter saw the feedback and saved my ass from oblivion and gave me another shot.)

But yes I agree with the sentiment of God help this company. God help the candidate too lol. It's super super common. Unfortunately smaller companies have even less standardization around their hiring pipelines, so they're even more annoying.