Last week we covered the two technical rounds: a modernized coding screen that tests whether candidates can own AI-assisted output, and a system design round where letting them use AI reveals more signal than any whiteboard session.

This week: the two judgment rounds. Communication, business acumen, curiosity, and adaptability. These map directly to the three skills we covered a few weeks ago, the ones that now separate your strongest engineers from everyone else. This series is the "how do you actually hire for them" to that article's "here's what matters."

These rounds are also where the most signal lives at senior levels, and the ones worth investing real time in.

Give them the weight they deserve, and your loop will tell you things a coding screen never could.

At senior levels, the job is coordination, tradeoff communication, and shaping what gets built, not just building it.

1. "Tell me about a time you spotted a problem mid-sprint that nobody had flagged yet. What did you do?"

Strong answers here are specific: the Slack message they sent, who they pulled in, the options they laid out alongside the problem. They didn't wait to be asked. That proactive instinct either shows up in how they tell the story or it doesn't.

2. "Tell me about a situation where you feel like you went above and beyond, for a team member, your whole team, or beyond."

This one reveals something the other questions don't: do they invest in people, or just in work? The engineers worth holding onto notice when a teammate is struggling and say something. They write the runbook nobody asked for. Listen for whether the story is genuinely about someone else, or whether "above and beyond" just means they worked late to ship a feature. You'll hear the difference.

3. "Tell me about a time you needed to get buy-in from someone who had different priorities or disagreed with your approach."

This is the influence question. You're listening for whether they understood the other person's perspective before trying to move them, whether they adapted their argument or just pushed harder, and whether the relationship came out intact. Engineers who navigate this well are the ones your cross-functional partners will actually want to work with.

4. "How do you know if what you shipped actually mattered?"

Engineers who think in impact have a real answer: a metric they checked in Amplitude, a user signal, a conversation they went back and had. That habit of closing the loop is exactly what separates someone who ships features from someone who ships outcomes. If the answer is "it shipped on time and didn't break," that's honest, but it's not enough.

5. "How do you decide what not to tell your stakeholders, and can you give me an example?" 🎯

Most interviewers never ask this, which is exactly why it's so useful. The real judgment isn't explaining things clearly. It's knowing what to surface, what to hold back, and how to frame it depending on who's in the room. Engineers who've thought about this give you something specific. The ones who haven't say something general about "keeping it simple." You'll hear the difference immediately.

💡 Debrief signal: did information come from them, or only in response to questions? And did their stories show investment in people, or just in output?

This round rewards interviewers who listen carefully. The rehearsed version sounds like: "I'm always keeping up with the latest trends," "I love learning new things," "I try to stay current." Genuine curiosity sounds like a tool name, a specific problem they ran into, something that surprised them. The questions below are designed to surface the real thing.

1. "What's something you explored in the last 30 days that wasn't on your task list?"

The bar is genuinely low: a new tool they poked at for an hour, an API they hit out of interest, a paper they disagreed with. The engineers who light up on this and go specific, tool name, what they found, what surprised them, those are the people who will keep growing regardless of what the stack looks like in two years. Engineers who go specific here are showing you exactly who they are.

2. "What's a strongly held technical opinion you've changed your mind about? What shifted?"

The engineers you want pair curiosity with intellectual humility. They can point to something they believed, explain why they changed their view, and tell you what it took to get there. That flexibility is what lets someone adapt when the ground shifts, and it will. If they can't name anything, that's worth noting.

3. "What's something you've been wanting to dig into but haven't had time for yet? What's in the way?"

This one is honest in a way the others aren't. Curiosity has to compete with deadlines, family, and cognitive load, and engineers who acknowledge that are showing you they think deliberately about where their energy goes. It also tends to get less rehearsed answers because it asks about something they haven't done yet, which is harder to polish.

4. "Tell me about something you pushed your team to try that came from your own curiosity. What happened?"

Curiosity that stays internal doesn't compound. The engineers who move teams forward bring their ideas to the group and advocate for them, even when the initial response is skepticism. You want to hear how they brought people along, and what happened when it didn't go as expected is often the most interesting part.

5. "Tell me about a time the environment shifted significantly and you had to adapt. What was actually hard about it?"

The most valuable answers here go beyond "I adapted and it worked out." You want honest reflection: what was genuinely hard, what they did about it, and what they came out with. Adaptability isn't the absence of friction. It's knowing how to move through it.

💡 Debrief signal: specific examples or general statements. Did their curiosity go anywhere, or stay in their head?

Four rounds. Two layers.

The technical rounds give you the floor: can this person build things and own the output? The judgment rounds give you the ceiling: will this person communicate, think in outcomes, stay curious, and keep growing as the job keeps changing?

The candidates who clear all four are out there. They're just harder to find if your loop isn't designed to surface them.

After your next full loop, run the debrief with these four questions, one per round:

If you can't answer all four confidently, one of your rounds didn't do its job. That gap is your next interview design problem. Fix one round before the next hire.

Want something covered? Hit reply and tell me. I love hearing what you’re dealing with.

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The best engineering leaders hire for who someone is becoming, not just what they've already built. Design your loop to find both. 🚀

Until next time,

Sabeen 🐝

P.S.

This two-part series has a natural starting point: The 3 Skills Your Engineers Actually Need Right Now, the piece that laid out what to hire for in the first place. If you're new here, that's the best place to start. And Part 1 of this series covers the technical rounds if you missed it last week. Three articles, one complete picture. 👋