Interview scorecard builder

Interview scorecard — Founding Engineer
[Company]

Rating scale: 1 (strong no) · 2 (no) · 3 (mixed) · 4 (yes) · 5 (strong yes)

Interview loop
  1. Founder screen (30 min) — Motivation, stage fit, culture add.
  2. Practical exercise (60–90 min) — Role-specific task, shared live or as a take-home.
  3. Reference-driven deep dive (45 min) — Two projects they're proudest of, in first person.
  4. Team fit (30 min per interviewer) — Working style, disagreement style, feedback style.
  5. Reverse pitch (30 min) — Founder sells the mission and the equity story.

Competencies
  01. Ownership
      Why it matters: Runs decisions end to end, escalates only when useful.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  02. Speed of execution
      Why it matters: Ships small, high-quality units of work fast.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  03. Craft bar
      Why it matters: Cares visibly about quality in their functional area.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  04. Communication
      Why it matters: Writes and speaks clearly, especially about trade-offs.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  05. Founder alignment
      Why it matters: Comfortable with ambiguity, resource constraint, and pivots.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  06. Shipped a production system from zero to real users in a …
      Why it matters: Shipped a production system from zero to real users in a previous role.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  07. Comfortable being the only engineer in a room and the acc…
      Why it matters: Comfortable being the only engineer in a room and the accountable owner of a decision.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  08. Reads and writes cleanly in your primary language and fra…
      Why it matters: Reads and writes cleanly in your primary language and framework.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

  09. High bar on quality without needing a formal spec to move.
      Why it matters: High bar on quality without needing a formal spec to move.
      Evidence: ______________________________________
      Rating (1–5): ___

Overall recommendation
  [ ] Strong hire   [ ] Hire   [ ] No hire   [ ] Strong no hire

Interviewer: __________________     Date: ____________