Engineering Interview Loop
Design a level-calibrated technical interview loop with probe ladders that get past rehearsed answers, plus an anchored scorecard.
Before & after
Same prompt, same agent — the only difference is the skill.
I can help you prepare for interviewing senior engineers on systems design. You'd typically want to cover problem statement, requirements, high-level design, and then dig into trade-offs and scale. It helps to have an open-ended problem to work through. I'd suggest preparing a realistic scenario from your own infrastructure if possible. Do you have a specific system in mind you'd like to grill them on?
SYSTEMS DESIGN GRILL WORKFLOW STAGE 1: PROBLEM CLARIFICATION (8 min) • Candidate defines functional requirements (read heavy? write heavy? latency SLAs?) • Candidate defines non-functional requirements (scale: 10K QPS? 1M? Consistency model?) • WATCH FOR: Asking clarifying questions vs. guessing STAGE 2: HIGH-LEVEL ARCHITECTURE (12 min) • Draw a box diagram. Candidate sketches API gateway → services → data layer • Identify choke points early (database reads? cache misses?) • WATCH FOR: Reasoning about trade-offs, not memorized templates STAGE 3: DEEP DIVE - DATA LAYER (15 min) • Walk through sharding strategy. Replication? Failover? • Discuss read-after-write consistency guarantees • WATCH FOR: Understanding failure modes STAGE 4: BOTTLENECK ANALYSIS (10 min) • "Your solution fails at 100K QPS. Fix it." • Push on cache invalidation, hotspots, or service boundaries • WATCH FOR: Iterative problem-solving, not panic STAGE 5: FOLLOW-UP (5 min) • Monitoring strategy. Observability plan. • How do you test this architecture? SCORING: Communication clarity, trade-off reasoning, depth on weak areas.
About this skill
Build an interview loop for one engineering role that tests the work the person will actually do. Every question comes with follow-ups that separate real experience from memorized answers.
What it does
- Maps 4-6 role-specific competencies to rounds (coding, system design, project deep dive, debugging, collaboration)
- Writes each question with a probe ladder, including constraint changes and 'why not the alternative' follow-ups
- Lists rehearsed-answer tells and real-experience tells for interviewers
- Produces scorecards rated 1-4, with behavioral anchors for each level
- Can run a live mock interview or turn interviewer notes into an evidence-based debrief
What you get
A loop packet: competency definitions, round plan, questions with probe ladders, scorecards, and debrief rules with a stated hire bar.
Best for
Engineering managers and founders hiring engineers who want consistent, fair, hard-to-game interviews.
SKILL.md preview
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name: engineering-interview-loop
description: Design and run a structured technical interview loop for an engineering candidate, calibrated to role level, with probe ladders that push past rehearsed answers and a scorecard with behavioral anchors. Use when the user is hiring an engineer and asks for interview questions, a loop design, a system design prompt, a scorecard, or wants to practice-interview or debrief a candidate, including casual asks like "give me a good system design question for a senior backend hire", "what should I ask this candidate about their last project", or "help me make sense of my interview notes".
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# Engineering Interview Loop
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