2 min lesson
Take-home / practical exercise
For each case in "Take-home / practical exercise", name the signal and the response you would use.
Step 1 of 2
If there's a take-home, expect a slice of the real job rather than a contrived puzzle. The likely shapes (a general-industry inference for senior support and quality roles) all test the same thing: can you turn a messy pile of signal into a ranked, quantified, decision-ready artifact.
A pile of messy, overlapping bug reports.
Dedup, cluster, severity-tag and rank.
Output a 'do this first' list with reasons.
Raw user signal across channels.
Theme it and quantify each theme.
Turn anecdote into a defensible trend.
A small tool that clusters or reproduces.
Shows you automate triage at scale.
Demonstrates the exact agent-assisted-tooling skill.
They are grading prioritization judgment and written communication, not volume. A tight, ranked, quantified output beats an exhaustive dump every time. Show your taxonomy explicitly so the reader can see how you decided.
- Issue cluster
- Edits silently dropped on save
- Severity
- S1 data loss
- Users / ARR affected
- ~120 reports, 3 enterprise accts
- Frequency
- Daily
- Call
- Fix first - irreversible user harm
- Issue cluster
- Agent loops on large refactors
- Severity
- S2 broken workflow
- Users / ARR affected
- ~40 reports, mid-market
- Frequency
- Weekly
- Call
- Next - high frustration, has workaround
- Issue cluster
- Tab latency in big files
- Severity
- S3 degraded
- Users / ARR affected
- Scattered, low ARR
- Frequency
- Intermittent
- Call
- Backlog - quantify before acting
| Issue cluster | Severity | Users / ARR affected | Frequency | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edits silently dropped on save | S1 data loss | ~120 reports, 3 enterprise accts | Daily | Fix first - irreversible user harm |
| Agent loops on large refactors | S2 broken workflow | ~40 reports, mid-market | Weekly | Next - high frustration, has workaround |
| Tab latency in big files | S3 degraded | Scattered, low ARR | Intermittent | Backlog - quantify before acting |
A worked triage table beats prose: severity x impact, with volume, ARR and frequency attached to each cluster.
Cursor explicitly expects you to use agent-assisted tools. If the take-home is a triage, actually use an agent to cluster the reports or draft repros, then show your prompt, what you kept and what you corrected. Doing the work the way the role does it - agent-driven, with human judgment on top - demonstrates the exact skill the JD names and you can say so in your write-up.
Learn more
Full explanation
Don't bury the recommendation
The failure mode is a thorough analysis with no clear call. Lead with the recommendation - 'fix the silent-edit-loss cluster first, here's why' - then support it. Tie every item to volume, ARR affected and frequency so the ranking is defensible, not a vibe.
QOn a take-home that asks you to triage 200 messy bug reports, what distinguishes a strong submission from a weak one?