Communicating tradeoffs & the client simulation

The client-simulation round puts you across from a frustrated senior engineer - sometimes a real one, sometimes the interviewer playing one. The eval isn't whether you have the answer. It's whether they'd want you back in their codebase next quarter.

Cursor's culture is truth-seeking, which in a customer conversation means you name the real problem and the real risk, including bad news, without flinching. The skill is delivering hard truths in a way that preserves the relationship rather than detonating it.