Designing a loop, calibrating a bar, structured scoring, and defending a hire or no-hire decision.
6 questions in Engineering Management.
Give a deliberately short brief, keep a written fact sheet you answer from truthfully, and tell the candidate more detail exists. Score which design-changing facts they surface and whether the work changes, not how many questions they ask, and give every candidate the same answers and a midpoint disclosure chosen by one rule.
A short, structured technical screen that asks a few questions resembling what the loop will probe, with pass criteria written in advance, run by someone able to follow up. Judge it by whether screen-passers clear the coding round more often without the pipeline collapsing, and count the candidate's time as a cost.
Treat thin evidence as a missing decision rather than a weak yes, because a hire made on impressions is a coin flip dressed as a process. Separate what was observed from what was inferred, find which required signals nobody actually tested, and close that gap with a targeted follow-up rather than overruling the room or rubber-stamping it.
Collect written evidence before anyone speaks, then work out whether the two disagree about what the candidate did or about where the bar sits, because only the second is yours to settle. Decide on the evidence against the competency, name the decision as yours, and fix whichever part of the loop produced the split.
Work backwards from the four or five competencies the role genuinely needs, map each to exactly one round so nothing is measured four times, score against shared behavioural anchors, require written feedback before the debrief opens, and treat both false negatives and candidate experience as data you owe yourself.
Work the funnel backwards from three accepted offers to see how much top-of-pipeline you need, own sourcing and referrals rather than waiting on inbound, treat speed and an honest pitch as your two real advantages, and protect the bar by moving the date instead of the standard. Use this HIRING answer to show the decision, trade-off, and evidence rather than a memorised definition.