Phase 8 — Technical Interviews & Engineering Evidence
A practice workbook built from source inspected on 11 October 2026. Repository code, test definitions and documentation are evidence of different kinds; none automatically proves continuous production performance or personal employment experience.
This final deep-dive phase turns the handbook's seven earlier tracks into interview conversations supported by verifiable work. It is not a collection of memorised answers. Your aim is to explain a decision, describe a request or failure path, identify the evidence, recognise limits and propose the next test.
Learning path
| Lesson | Skill to demonstrate |
|---|---|
| 01. Answer framework | Clear answers with evidence and caveats |
| 02. AWS and Azure | Cloud architecture choices and risk |
| 03. Kubernetes | Safe diagnostic reasoning |
| 04. Terraform, CI/CD and GitOps | Delivery boundaries and verification |
| 05. SRE incident exercise | Impact-based response and postmortems |
| 06. Security and DevSecOps | Trust boundaries and least privilege |
| 07. AI and RAG design | Grounding, evaluation and action safety |
| 08. Architecture trade-offs | Defend choices under constraints |
| 09. STAR stories | Truthful personal contribution stories |
| 10. Portfolio evidence audit | Traceable claims, reproducible proof |
| 11. Mock interview | Timed practice and review scoring |
How to practise
- Choose a target role and identify two required skills.
- Answer aloud without opening the suggested answer where one is provided.
- Draw a minimal component and trust-boundary diagram for each system-design prompt.
- Cite a source file, a test and a limitation; do not claim you ran it unless you did.
- Score the answer with the mock interview rubric.
- Record an improvement and repeat the same question a week later.
Evidence categories: implemented source, test defined, test observed passing, documented demonstration, cloud-validated at a particular time, proposed design. Distinguish these in every answer.
Linked handbook references
- Chapter 12 interview preparation
- Engineering Evidence Guide
- Architecture and system design exercises
- Debugging and Issue Register
- Project case studies
The offline evidence fixture exercises claim classification only. It does not run application tests, audit AWS/Azure environments or validate employment claims.