You have 100 data scientists who all have a degree, career experience, maybe a few cool projects under their belt. If you can only pick three of them, why not pick the ones that can solve a problem faster and show a little more skill in coding? Tough, but if there's a lot of competition for a job, that's just how it goes. Also you said you were also allowed to use the documentation, which I think is pretty reasonable, so you don't have to have the entire API memorized.