The take-home / practical artifact

This is where the loop is won or lost. Cursor uses 4-8 hour take-homes for senior IC roles and for this charter the prompt will be a realistic cost-attribution or capacity-planning problem - treated here as general-industry inference, but consistent with how they hire.

Use this stage map to decide what evidence belongs in each round. Memorizing the order is the shallow version. For every stage, prepare one artifact, one story and one question that shows how you reason in the role.

The win condition is the artifact, not effort. Two deliverables: a cost model with assumptions you can defend and a one-page recommendation an engineer and a finance partner can both follow.

1. 1State assumptions loudly. GPU hourly cost, utilization, tokens per request, requests per DAU. List them at the top so a reviewer can challenge inputs, not chase your math.
2. 2Build the model so inputs are visible. Separate assumptions from calculations from outputs. A reviewer should be able to change one number and watch the answer move.
3. 3Run sensitivity on the 2-3 variables that dominate. Find which inputs actually swing the answer (usually utilization and request volume) and show the answer across a low/base/high band.
4. 4Make one clear recommendation and own the tradeoff. A point of view beats a fence-sit. Say what you'd do, what it costs and what you're trading away.
5. 5Write the one-pager for two audiences. The engineer needs the mechanism; the finance partner needs the dollars and the risk. One page, both readers satisfied.