Indeed. I read the book in hopes of getting a good intro to TDD after only picking it up by osmosis (which, as proven by the discussions here, is not a good way to learn TDD) and it definitely goes against the maximalist interpretation as described in TFA. While there are examples showing the minimal code-approach he is very explicit about the fact that you don't have to write your code that way.
One thing I liked specifically was his emphasis on the idea that you can use TDD to adjust the size of your steps to match the complexity of the code. Very complex? Small steps with many tests, maybe using the minimal code-approach to get things going. Simple/trivial? A single test and the solution immediately with no awkward step in between.
If your goal is to avoid coupling tests to implementation then TDD seems like the most obvious strategy. You write the test before the implementation, so it is much harder to end up with the coupling than other strategies.
I do think there is some signal based on how well the developer can utilise existing structures without getting stuck in "all you have is a hammer". That said the tradeoff is mostly time-based so if it is a take home without constraints a lot of that signal is lost.
One thing I liked specifically was his emphasis on the idea that you can use TDD to adjust the size of your steps to match the complexity of the code. Very complex? Small steps with many tests, maybe using the minimal code-approach to get things going. Simple/trivial? A single test and the solution immediately with no awkward step in between.