2 min lesson
Causal reasoning under interrogation
Answer this: "An interviewer says: 'Agent error rate dropped 15 percent the week we shipped a new retry policy. So the retry policy caused it, right?' What is the strongest response structure?"
Step 1 of 2
The deep-dive round isn't a method quiz. It's a pressure test of whether your causal claim survives someone actively trying to break it. Truth-seeking, the value Cursor screens for, looks like welcoming that pressure.
A strong answer has a shape. You state the counterfactual, name your identifying assumption, list the confounders and where they push, then triangulate across methods. When the evidence is thin, you say so and name the experiment that would settle it.
Interactive diagram. Tab through its regions; each focused region shows its detail in the panel below.
The same causal claim, handled two ways - the deep-dive round screens for which shape you reach for.