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Capstone: Full Mock Loop1 / 2

2 min lesson

The five-minute open, said out loud

Walk through "The five-minute open, said out loud" in order, then name the proof that tells you it worked.

Step 1 of 2

The five-minute open, said out loudDrill protocol

  1. 10–1 min · One-line fit. Who you are as a product engineer in one sentence: the surface you ship, the thing you're known for and why Cursor's automate coding mission is the work you'd choose. Record it. If it could be said about any AI startup, rewrite it.
  2. 21–3 min · Two product stories. Two things you shipped end-to-end, each with an ambiguous start, a decision you owned and a result. One should be user-facing product, one should touch an AI or systems problem. No team-credit fog - say I.
  3. 33–4 min · Daily Cursor proof. Name a real thing you built with Cursor this week. Which model, what you accepted, where you overrode it. Specifics here are the authenticity signal that the technical rounds will probe harder.
  4. 44–5 min · Pace honesty. Cursor's core product team runs fast, flat, sometimes six-day weeks, in-person in SF or NY. Say truthfully whether that's a fit. A confident yes, here's why beats a hedged maybe and a real no saves everyone the loop.
Interview move

Recruiters are listening for specific recent usage, not enthusiasm. “I love AI tools” is noise. “I rebuilt our flaky webhook handler in Cursor yesterday - agent mode for the scaffolding, but I rewrote its retry logic because it dropped the idempotency key” is a candidate who clearly lives in the product. Bank one story like that.