1 min lesson
Timebox investigation, escalate by rule
Use "Timebox investigation, escalate by rule" to tell the cases apart, then choose a response for each one.
Step 1 of 2
Timebox investigation, escalate by ruleremove the per-ticket judgment tax
Two disciplines keep the rubric fast under load. First, timebox: give yourself a fixed window to reproduce and isolate before you either escalate or downgrade, so one gnarly bug doesn't eat the day the other forty needed. Second, write down the escalation line in advance so paging an engineer is a rule, not a fresh agony each time.
S2 and S3 with a known workaround
Reproduced and root-caused to a clear area
Goes into the ranked backlog with evidence
Any S0: data loss, security or outage
S1 regression confirmed in the latest release
Spiking volume on a hot path with no workaround
When they hand you a vague bug in the debugging or take-home round, don't start fixing. State your rubric out loud first: “I'd grade severity, then impact on users, ARR, frequency and whether it's a regression, then timebox the repro.” You've just shown the prioritization judgment the role is built around before writing a line.
“I don't triage by who shouted loudest. I grade severity on the worst outcome, multiply by reach - users, ARR, frequency, regression - and let that produce the order. A single data-loss report outranks a hundred cosmetic ones and I can show you the math.”