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Capstone: Mock Loop & Self-Exam1 / 3

1 min lesson

Two things you must be able to produce on demand

For each case in "Two things you must be able to produce on demand", name the signal and the response you would use.

Step 1 of 3

Two things you must be able to produce on demandNon-negotiable artifacts

One story per value theme

Ownership, automation, incident, security-without-friction, prioritization, conflict.

Each with a number and tellable in under two minutes.

If a theme has no story, that's the first gap to fill.

One demoable automation artifact

A real script or tool you built that runs and that you can talk through.

Bonus if you can show where you used AI and where you overrode it.

This is your proof you do IT as engineering.

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Full explanation

Pre-loop checklist

Pre-loop checklistTick all before you walk in

  • Stack research done: confirm Cursor's likely IdP (Okta/Entra), MDM (Kandji/Jamf) and SaaS (Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom) so your examples land in their world.
  • Three sharp questions prepared for each interviewer - about the IT roadmap, the M&A integration cadence and how the team uses AI internally.
  • AI examples ready: two specific, recent uses of Cursor with the judgment call you made on each.
  • Scripting warmed up: you've re-run the s1 drill within the last 48 hours, both with and without AI assistance.
Set a go/no-go bar

Go bar: every scorecard dimension at 3 or higher, every behavioral theme has a quantified story and your demoable artifact runs. If any axis is below 3 the day before, spend the last day there - closing a blocking weakness beats polishing a strength.

A 3-day focused plan (adapt to your gaps)
Day 1 - close the lowest axis
Whatever scored worst. Re-read its module, then re-run the drill or design prompt that exercises it.
Day 2 - stories + artifact
Lock one quantified story per theme; get your demoable automation running clean and rehearse the walkthrough.
Day 3 - full mock + rest
Timed s1 drill, a 30-min s2 design out loud, the s4 behavioral set on camera; review, fix red flags, then stop early.
Interview move

Bring your demoable artifact to the loop in your head, ready to reference. When a behavioral or design question opens the door - “tell me about something you automated” - you have a concrete, runnable example instead of a hypothetical. Specificity is the whole game on a senior IC loop.

QYour mock scores are: zero-trust design 5, SCIMSystem for Cross-domain Identity Management. A standard for automatically creating and removing user accounts when people join or leave. Press Enter for the full definition./lifecycle 5, automation 4, but behavioral 2 and AI-native 2. You have one focused day left. Where does it go and why?