What the job really needs
The intake meeting and the job description that comes out of it. Every stock phrase a hiring manager uses has a decodable meaning, and every requirement is either load-bearing or copied from the last req.
Lessons
- What is a technical job description actually asking for? The one guide to the req: decoding hiring manager phrases, pinning down seniority, separating real requirements from copied ones, auditing the interview loop, and rewriting the description.
- What does a hiring manager mean by "distributed systems" and "migrating off the monolith"? The stock phrases, decoded into work you can search for.
- What does senior engineer actually mean? Seniority as scope of ownership at one company, and why one company's senior does not translate to another's.
- Which job requirements are must-haves and which are copy-paste? The litmus test: what does this person do in week one that fails without it? Plus the trap that shows up at resume review.
- What does each stage of an engineering interview loop test? The client's process, stage by stage: what it measures and which candidates it filters out.
- How do you spot and fix an impossible job description? Eight technologies, five years of React, a CS degree required. One person or three stapled together.
- What should an engineering intake cover, and what is engineering pay made of? The module capstone. Everything above compressed into one runsheet, plus the compensation facts the meeting has to settle.