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
Technical proficiency
35% weight
Check hands-on command of AWS Cost and Usage Report, GCP billing export in BigQuery, Azure Cost Management, plus tooling such as Cloudability, CloudZero, Kubecost or OpenCost queries.
Evidence to listen for
Command of the languages, frameworks, and data tools the role actually uses
Understands correctness, performance, and failure modes, not just syntax
Has opinions on testing and can justify them
Reads and reasons about code they did not write
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Cannot work independently; fundamentals are missing.
2
Needs Improvement
Weak fundamentals; output needs heavy review.
3
Satisfactory
Competent for the role; needs guidance on complex or unfamiliar work.
4
Very Good
Strong practitioner; handles hard problems with little guidance.
5
Excellent
Writes their own CUR or BigQuery billing queries, explains amortized versus unblended cost, and names tag or label hygiene fixes they enforced.
02
Evaluation factor
Systems and trade-offs
25% weight
Probe how they weigh Savings Plans against Reserved Instances and Spot, handle commitment coverage risk, and allocate shared Kubernetes and network egress costs across teams.
Evidence to listen for
Reasons about scale, latency, cost, and failure before writing code
Names the trade-off they chose and what they gave up
Understands the data lifecycle end to end
Anticipates what breaks at ten times the volume
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
No thinking beyond the immediate task; no awareness of scale or failure.
2
Needs Improvement
Limited architectural awareness; struggles with design decisions.
3
Satisfactory
Works within an existing design; makes sound local decisions.
4
Very Good
Designs for scale and maintainability; articulates trade-offs clearly.
5
Excellent
Reasons through commitment term, coverage and utilization targets openly, and defends a showback or chargeback allocation model including untaggable shared spend.
03
Evaluation factor
Evidence and rigour
25% weight
Test the numbers: unit cost metrics (cost per tenant, per request, per build), realized savings after rightsizing, forecast accuracy versus actual, and anomaly detection thresholds.
Evidence to listen for
Validates results rather than trusting output
Knows how their work is measured and what a bad result looks like
Can describe a time their own analysis or model was wrong and how they caught it
Careful about data quality, leakage, and silent failure
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Ships unvalidated work; no notion of how correctness is checked.
2
Needs Improvement
Validates superficially; misses obvious quality or leakage issues.
3
Satisfactory
Reasonable checks in place; rigour drops under time pressure.
4
Very Good
Validates thoroughly; can name a real error they caught in their own work.
5
Excellent
Quotes verified savings and unit economics with baselines, timeframes and how finance signed off, distinguishing real reductions from credits or usage drops.
04
Evaluation factor
Collaboration and communication
15% weight
Assess how they land recommendations with engineering owners and FP&A: budget alerts, tagging policy enforcement, monthly variance reviews, and getting idle resources actually deleted.
Evidence to listen for
Explains technical work to non-technical stakeholders
Gives and takes code or peer review constructively
Documents enough that the work survives their absence
Aligns with team process rather than working around it
Five-point scoring guide
1
Poor
Cannot work in a team; resistant to feedback.
2
Needs Improvement
Communication issues create rework; lone-wolf tendencies.
3
Satisfactory
Adequate team member; documentation and review participation are light.
4
Very Good
Communicates well; reliable reviewer and collaborator.
5
Excellent
Describes converting engineers into cost owners through dashboards and reviews, and translating spend variance into terms finance and product both accept.
Put this rubric to work
Score every candidate against the same standard
Add these weighted factors to Hirevire and let AI evaluate recorded answers against your rubric.
