Engineering Hiring Rubric

---
name: engineering-hiring-rubric
description: "Build an engineering hiring rubric and technical interview scorecard for evaluating software engineers at a specific level. Use when asked to create an interview rubric, design a hiring process, build a technical scorecard, or standardize engineer evaluation. Produces a full interview scorecard, behavioral question bank, technical question set with evaluation criteria, system design rubric, and debrief agenda."
---

# Engineering Hiring Rubric

Produce a complete hiring rubric and interview scorecard for evaluating software engineers at a specific role and level. The rubric must be specific enough that two interviewers who have never compared notes will score the same candidate within one level of each other. That requires: explicit behavioral anchors (what does "Strong Hire" look like vs. "Hire" for each competency), calibrated technical questions with written evaluation criteria, and a structured debrief format that surfaces signal rather than recency bias. Include calibration notes to help interviewers recognize and counter common evaluation biases.

## Required Inputs

Ask for these if not already provided:
- **Role** — backend, frontend, fullstack, SRE/platform, data, ML, or mobile engineer
- **Level** — junior (L3/IC2), mid (L4/IC3), senior (L5/IC4), or staff (L6/IC5); clarify the company's level naming if different
- **Team context** — what the team builds, team size, and what problems this hire will work on in the first year
- **Tech stack** — primary languages and frameworks for the technical questions; list the stack explicitly
- **Interview format** — which rounds are used (phone screen, coding, system design, behavioral, take-home); if not specified, produce a recommended format

## Output Format

---

# Engineering Hiring Rubric: [Role] — [Level]

**Role:** [e.g., Senior Backend Engineer]… load the full skill through Skill Me