15 minutes, report the moment they finish
Frontend engineer judgment assessment
Twelve written situations, about fifteen minutes, that measure the decisions a coding test cannot see: what to build, what to refuse, how to handle a design that will not survive real data, and what to cut when the date moves.
The gap
What you cannot see when you hire a frontend engineer
A coding test shows whether they can write the function. It never shows whether they should have.
The case starts here
“Design handed over the new dashboard. It ships in two weeks.” — the Tech Lead
Every case opens with a request that already contains its own answer — because that is how requests arrive at work. What we measure starts with whether they notice.
What this case shows you
- Whether they spot the states the design forgot
- How they respond to a spec that breaks at scale
- What they cut first when the release date moves
- How they push back on a design without blocking it
- Whether they name the risk they are shipping with
Scoring
The same six capabilities, every role
The case changes. The rubric does not. That is what makes a frontend engineer comparable to another frontend engineer, and a score meaningful across your whole shortlist.
- Spots when the brief is wrong
- Knows what the data supports
- Sweats states and edge cases
- Knows what is cheap to build
- Explains decisions outside the team
- Holds a position with a senior stakeholder
- Moves without being told
- Keeps going when the plan changes
Marta R. · Frontend Engineer
Leads with both of the things you named
Reaches first for thinks about what breaks, with the rest close behind.
How much of their attention this one gets — not a pass mark.
How it works
Three steps.
No calls, no setup.
What must they be good at?
- Spot when the brief is wrong
- Knows what the data supports
- Moves without being told
- Sweats states and edge cases
One credit per candidate, spent only when they start. The first is free — see what the packs cost — and nothing expires, so a role on hold costs nothing.
Related reading
Worth reading before you decide
10 min
How to evaluate a UX writer
Evaluate a UX writer on whether they fix the interface or just the sentence: whether they flag the broken flow behind a confusing message, how they handle a destructive action, what they do with a legal constraint they cannot remove, and how they decide what not to say. A writing sample shows the final line. It never shows what the screen looked like before, or what they refused to paper over.
Read it9 min
How to hire a product manager
Hiring a product manager well comes down to what they refuse rather than what they shipped: whether they interrogate a request instead of writing the ticket, how they size an opportunity with incomplete data, what they say no to and how, what goes first when the deadline halves, and which single metric they would move and by how much. A roadmap shows the output of a hundred decisions and none of the decisions.
Read it8 min
Product manager interview questions worth asking
A question discriminates when a strong and a weak candidate give visibly different answers to it. Most standard product manager questions fail that test because the good answer is public and rehearsable. The ones that work put the candidate in a situation with no correct option — a request that contains its own answer, a stakeholder who will not move, a deadline that halves — and read what they reach for first.
Read it
Hiring a frontend engineer right now?
Invite one candidate and read their report the moment they finish. The first one is free, with no card.