Candidate
Communication & Clarity 3/6
Ability to articulate ideas, experiences, and technical concepts
Logical flow when presenting ideas or answering questions
Reads the room and adjusts communication style accordingly
Story Consistency 3/6
Timeline, roles, and responsibilities stay coherent across the conversation
Asking the same thing differently still produces a coherent answer
When asked for concrete details, they deliver without hesitation
Technical Credibility 3/6
Claimed experience vs. actual depth when probed on specifics
Can explain reasoning, trade-offs, and alternatives — not just what they did
When pushed past their prepared talking points, do they still have substance?
Probe Deeper (Optional)
Use these follow-up questions to investigate technical depth further.
Determine if knowledge is from direct experience or observation
Ask for concrete details about tools, configs, or code they worked with
Ownership & Accountability 3/6
Can they clearly say "I did X" vs "the team did Y"?
When you ask follow-ups, does the story stay solid or start crumbling?
Specific choices, trade-offs, and reasoning that were their own call
Probe Deeper (Optional)
Ownership concerns? Dig into whether the experience is genuinely theirs.
People sometimes absorb team stories as their own — probe for first-person details
Problem-Solving & Pressure 3/6
Do they acknowledge gaps honestly and try to reason through it?
Given a scenario or challenge, can they think on their feet?
When the interview gets challenging, do they lean in or check out?
Probe Deeper (Optional)
Use hypothetical scenarios to test whether they truly understand design patterns and system logic, or just memorized answers.
Present a trade-off between two valid approaches and see if they reason through it or freeze
Change a variable in their own story and see if they can predict the consequences
Someone who really understands a tool knows its limits, not just its strengths
Propose something unnecessarily complex and see if they push back or blindly agree
Describe a broken scenario and see if they have a systematic approach or just guess
The Vibe 3/6
The gut check — personality, energy, and how they'd fit the team
Curiosity about the team, the work, and the challenges ahead
Confident and timely answers vs. long pauses or rambling
Interviewer Notes
Free-form observations, red flags, highlights, or anything else worth noting