Review the evidence signals before interviewing. Then use the anchored descriptions—not instinct alone—to choose the score that best matches each answer.
01
Evaluation factor
Record of outcomes
35% weight
Ask for owned uptime numbers, MTTR reductions, and infrastructure cost per unit; check they ran real budgets, vendor contracts, and headcount across NOC, SRE, or field operations.
Evidence to listen for
Names organisations, budgets, and headcount they were actually accountable for
Gives outcomes with numbers, not initiatives with adjectives
Separates what they drove from what the market or a predecessor did
Can describe something they owned that failed
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Titles and initiatives only; no accountable outcomes.
2
Needs Improvement
Claims results the organisation would have had anyway; no scope clarity.
3
Satisfactory
Real accountability with some numbers; attribution occasionally generous.
4
Very Good
Clear scope and measured outcomes, including an honest failure.
5
Excellent
Cites specific availability targets met, MTTR cut with dates, and cloud or datacentre spend reduced while scaling volume.
02
Evaluation factor
Strategic judgement
25% weight
Probe how they chose between building tooling and buying platforms, when they paid down technical debt, and how capacity plans were set against demand forecasts.
Evidence to listen for
Explains a decision where the options were genuinely close and the information incomplete
Can say what they chose not to do and why
Distinguishes a bet from a certainty
Changes course on evidence rather than defending a position past its life
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Frameworks and slogans; no real decision they can walk through.
2
Needs Improvement
Describes decisions made elsewhere; cannot state the trade-off.
3
Satisfactory
Sound judgement on familiar decisions; less tested on ambiguous ones.
4
Very Good
Walks a genuinely close call, states what they gave up, and changed course on evidence.
5
Excellent
Explains a build versus buy or migration call with the cost model, risks accepted, and how the outcome was later measured.
03
Evaluation factor
Building and leading teams
25% weight
Look for hiring and retaining on-call engineers, managers they promoted, sane rotation and escalation design, and how burnout or attrition was addressed.
Evidence to listen for
Has hired, developed, and where necessary removed people
Names someone who grew under them and what they did to cause it
Handles an underperformer directly rather than waiting it out
Builds a team that functions when they are not in the room
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
No real people leadership; avoids difficult personnel decisions.
2
Needs Improvement
Managed a team but cannot describe developing or exiting anyone.
3
Satisfactory
Competent manager; development is informal.
4
Very Good
Demonstrable record of growing people and handling underperformance directly.
5
Excellent
Names engineers grown into leads, describes a rotation redesign, and shows attrition or on-call load improving under their tenure.
04
Evaluation factor
Influence across the business
15% weight
Test how they negotiated SLAs and roadmap trade-offs with product, security, finance, and customers, especially during outages or postmortems with executive visibility.
Evidence to listen for
Wins support from peers and boards without positional authority
Translates their function into terms the rest of the business cares about
Delivers unwelcome news early
Manages up without either capitulating or stonewalling
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Relies entirely on authority; conceals bad news.
2
Needs Improvement
Struggles to influence peers; communicates in function-specific jargon.
3
Satisfactory
Works adequately with peers and leadership.
4
Very Good
Persuades peers and boards on merit and delivers bad news early.
5
Excellent
Describes an incident review that changed company priorities, with clear evidence of engineering, product, and executive buy-in.
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