1 min lesson
Confirm the non-negotiables
Walk through the important items in "Confirm the non-negotiables" and give the practical point of each.
Step 1 of 2
Confirm the non-negotiablesReadiness gates
- Daily Cursor usage for at least the last 2–4 weeks on real work, not a toy repo. This is the thing they detect in minutes.
- One real competitor comparison done and written down - Copilot, Windsurf or Claude Code on a task you actually ran.
- A story bank of at least three polished STAR stories covering a hard debug, a turned-around customer and ownership in ambiguity.
- One automation example you can pitch in three minutes with its trade-offs.
- Three smart questions ready for the cross-functional and values rounds.
Go / no-go bar
Set the bar before you read your scores, so you can't move it. A reasonable gate: no stage below 3, the two technical stages (live debug, written) at 4+, daily usage confirmed and the story bank and automation example ready. Miss the bar and the plan is to drill, not to wing it.