How Do We Actually Judge Engineers We're Hiring?

You say you don't know how to evaluate engineers. That isn't quite true. You know how to be impressed, and you know how to be unsure. Those are feelings. They are not a standard, and you have been hiring on feelings. The interview feels like guesswork because no one on your team has agreed, out loud, what good engineering looks like here — not in general, but on your systems, with your constraints, under your deadlines. Without that agreement, every interviewer is grading a different test. Fix that first, together, before you look at another resume. The hiring bar is not a clever question you spring on candidates. It is a decision your team makes about itself.

◆ How this problem reads on the two dials

GuidanceKnowledge

More coaching

Some to learn

1:1 with AureliusWith others (a Pod)

Some one-to-one

Practise with peers

The core insight (define the standard before judging people) is simple to state but must be built and tested by the team through real practice, not absorbed as theory.

How the two dials adapt to you →

What’s really going on

The guesswork isn't in the candidate — it's in you. You cannot judge what you haven't defined. Before your next interview, sit with your team and write down three things 'good work' looks like in your shop. Test only for those. Everything else is noise you're mistaking for signal.

🔒 What you’ll build togetherUnlock by starting

A moveGather your team and name the three hardest problems your engineers actually face this year — not hypotheticals.

A moveFor each one, write down in plain words what a good answer looks like. Not a credential. An answer.

A moveBuild the interview around those three problems only. Cut any question you kept because it felt rigorous, not because it tests your standard.

A moveAfter each interview, have everyone write their verdict before discussing. Look hard at where you disagree — that's where your standard is still vague.

A moveReview your last five hires against this written standard. Say plainly where it would have changed the decision.

PractiseDefine the Bar · a Pod of 4 · 30 min

What changes unlock by starting

A written hiring standard every person on your team can state without looking it up.
Interviews that test for your actual work instead of general cleverness.
Less argument after interviews, because the argument happened beforehand, over the standard.
Fewer hires you quietly regret six months in.

One object, two jobs: a public answer to a real problem, and — the moment you start the chat — Aurelius’s live plan for your version of it.