I didn't study Engineering. I work in Germany and all my software positions said literally "Engineer" in the contract (both in German and English version). Maybe if it is in English it's not illegal who knows.
Since you are switching anyways you could try to adopt local first and that way you make sure you don't have yet another cloud dependency ie political dependency.
Non paid solo-coding assessments should disappear. Many disrespectful companies send it automatically to all applicants to don't even look at them after.
Every time I get those I request to do a live coding assessment, if they are not willing to lose even 1h of their time they were not serious about you.
If you decide your process really requires a solo assignment you can offer a gift card to prove you appreciate the candidate (and don't be stingy, you are already saving a lot of money by not having 1 of your engineers interview)
It's funny that most of people think the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece when in truth there is nothing particularly interesting about this painting. Just the heist that made it famous
Maybe we will finally start appreciating making short concise essays instead of useless filler pages like I had to do over the 20 years I spent studying.