I applied through a recruiter, and the process took one week.

I got a call from the recruiter and was asked to write a small, 8 to 12 hour sample program over a weekend based on simulating part of their operations. The only response was "thanks, but no thanks". I should have followed advice from life after layoffs and not do projects early in the interview process. With that type of response, there was no indication if they did not like my coding, my resume, salary expectations, or social media profile.

If you ask for a coding project, the expectation is decent feedback in exchange, and you should be expecting that the candidate is to be hired and you are confirming. Given that this was a cold call, I would not recommend interviewing with Kraken unless you need the work.

Write a small part of the operations.