1 min lesson
The nice-to-haves that separate finalists
Put this idea into your own words: "Could you whiteboard the architecture of a feature you'd build."
Step 1 of 2
The nice-to-haves that separate finalists
"Polished but gritty" is the phrase to internalize. It means you sweat the craft of a launch and the wording of a changelog and you'll also debug a failing demo at 11pm or hand-fix a data pipeline because the launch ships tomorrow. Polish without grit reads as a slide-deck PM; grit without polish reads as someone who can't represent the product to a customer.
Rate yourself 1-5 on each bar item this week. Have you shipped something with Cursor or a competitor in the last month? Could you whiteboard the architecture of a feature you'd build? Can you name a real gap in Copilot or Windsurf from using them? If any answer is weak, that's your prep target - not a reason to skip applying, but a thing to close before the onsite.
When asked about your technical depth, don't claim to be an engineer if you aren't. Show it instead: "I'm not coming from a pure SWE seat, but I prototyped X myself with Cursor and here's the architecture tradeoff I hit and how I reasoned about it with our engineer." Demonstrated building beats a claimed title and it's honest.