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Capstone: Mock Loop & Self-Exam1 / 3

2 min lesson

Have a crisp first-90-days answer

Give the practical answer to "What makes a 'why Cursor' answer land for this data platform role specifically, versus a generic 'I love hard problems'?" Then name the detail that supports it.

Step 1 of 3

Have a crisp first-90-days answerA common senior probe

  • Weeks 1-3: map what exists - current ingestion, the Dagster asset graph, where freshness and cost already hurt. Listen before you rebuild.
  • Weeks 4-8: ship one self-serve primitive that removes a recurring pain (a standard ingestion pattern or freshness SLAs on the top gold assets).
  • Weeks 9-12: harden the agent-data boundary - masking, access controls and audit - and write the operational standards the next hires inherit.
Interview move

Record yourself answering and grade for three things: specificity (a real number, not “massive scale”), ownership (“I decided,” not “we were tasked”) and intensity that's grounded in the mission rather than performed. A generic “I love hard problems” reads as a red flag here; “I cut bronze storage 40% by fixing the small-file layout” reads as the hire.