[WC] Product Engineer

Screening Assessment

Product Engineer | Job description and interview guide

Job Description

Role purpose

We’re looking for engineers who are ready to grow into Product Engineers: people who can turn

business needs into useful, reliable software. The role combines product thinking, full-stack

implementation, engineering fundamentals, AI-assisted development, and ownership of quality

from requirements through validation.

Responsibilities

• Product and business alignment: clarify user needs, business rules, success

measures, assumptions, and first-release scope.

• End-to-end implementation: build and connect user interfaces, backend behavior,

APIs, and persistent data.

• Engineering quality: implement validation, error handling, automated tests, and reliable

transaction or workflow behavior.

• AI-assisted development: use AI tools thoughtfully, provide useful context, review

generated code, and correct or reject unsafe or inaccurate output.

• Security and data boundaries: enforce authentication and authorization, protect private

data, and avoid trusting client-side controls for critical decisions.

• Technical judgment: compare alternatives, choose an appropriate level of complexity,

and explain trade-offs.

• Delivery and operations: provide setup instructions, configuration examples, test

commands, known limitations, and a clear route to running the application.

• Collaboration and communication: explain decisions, respond constructively to

feedback, and adapt when requirements change.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building software, and being able to say clearly which parts you

personally built.

• Sound foundations in software development, APIs, data modeling, authentication,

authorization, and integrations.

• Ability to investigate a user or business need, prioritize a useful first release, and define

testable acceptance criteria.

• Practical use of AI tools or willingness to demonstrate how AI-generated work can be

reviewed and validated.

• Working knowledge of version control, testing, and application setup or deployment

workflows.

• Clear communication, initiative, collaborative problem-solving, and accountability for

outcomes.

Still to confirm: reporting line, any compensation changes that come with the move, and final

qualifications for the role.

Key Interview Questions

Use comparable core questions across candidates. Ask for specific examples, the candidate’s

own contribution, decisions, outcomes, and lessons learned. A reviewer goes through the

results and notes strengths and gaps to look at more closely during the challenge. We still need

to confirm how long the screening takes, the rubric, and when results go out.

01 Experience and ownership

Tell us about software you helped build. What did you personally design, implement, or

improve?

02 Product discovery and MVP judgment

Describe an ambiguous request you turned into a working product or prototype. How did

you decide what to build first?

03 Engineering foundations

Explain how a key feature in a project works across the UI, backend, data, and

integrations.

04 Quality and testing

Describe a defect or edge case you discovered. How did you reproduce it, fix it, and

prevent recurrence?

05 AI-assisted work

How have you used AI to improve development? What did you verify, change, or reject?

06 Security and data boundaries

How would you protect a business application that handles user-specific data and

sensitive actions?

07 Technical trade-offs

Describe a decision where you chose between two implementation approaches. What

trade-offs mattered?

08 Adaptation and accountability

Describe a time a requirement or constraint changed late. What did you change and how

did you validate it?