fix(engineering): improve interview-system-designer - add scripts + extract references

engineering/interview-system-designer/scripts/interview_planner.py

@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""Generate an interview loop plan by role and level."""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import argparse
+import json
+from typing import Dict, List
+
+BASE_ROUNDS = {
+    "junior": [
+        ("Screen", 45, "Fundamentals and communication"),
+        ("Coding", 60, "Problem solving and code quality"),
+        ("Behavioral", 45, "Collaboration and growth mindset"),
+    ],
+    "mid": [
+        ("Screen", 45, "Fundamentals and ownership"),
+        ("Coding", 60, "Implementation quality"),
+        ("System Design", 60, "Service/component design"),
+        ("Behavioral", 45, "Stakeholder collaboration"),
+    ],
+    "senior": [
+        ("Screen", 45, "Depth and tradeoff reasoning"),
+        ("Coding", 60, "Code quality and testing"),
+        ("System Design", 75, "Scalability and reliability"),
+        ("Leadership", 60, "Mentoring and decision making"),
+        ("Behavioral", 45, "Cross-functional influence"),
+    ],
+    "staff": [
+        ("Screen", 45, "Strategic and technical depth"),
+        ("Architecture", 90, "Org-level design decisions"),
+        ("Technical Strategy", 60, "Long-term tradeoffs"),
+        ("Influence", 60, "Cross-team leadership"),
+        ("Behavioral", 45, "Values and executive communication"),
+    ],
+}
+
+QUESTION_BANK = {
+    "coding": [
+        "Walk through your approach before coding and identify tradeoffs.",
+        "How would you test this implementation for edge cases?",
+        "What would you refactor if this code became a shared library?",
+    ],
+    "system": [
+        "Design this system for 10x traffic growth in 12 months.",
+        "Where are the main failure modes and how would you detect them?",
+        "What components would you scale first and why?",
+    ],
+    "leadership": [
+        "Describe a time you changed technical direction with incomplete information.",
+        "How do you raise the bar for code quality across a team?",
+        "How do you handle disagreement between product and engineering priorities?",
+    ],
+    "behavioral": [
+        "Tell me about a high-stakes mistake and what changed afterward.",
+        "Describe a conflict where you had to influence without authority.",
+        "How do you support underperforming teammates?",
+    ],
+}
+
+
+def normalize_level(level: str) -> str:
+    level = level.strip().lower()
+    if level in {"staff+", "principal", "lead"}:
+        return "staff"
+    if level not in BASE_ROUNDS:
+        raise ValueError(f"Unsupported level: {level}")
+    return level
+
+
+def suggested_questions(round_name: str) -> List[str]:
+    name = round_name.lower()
+    if "coding" in name:
+        return QUESTION_BANK["coding"]
+    if "system" in name or "architecture" in name:
+        return QUESTION_BANK["system"]
+    if "lead" in name or "influence" in name or "strategy" in name:
+        return QUESTION_BANK["leadership"]
+    return QUESTION_BANK["behavioral"]
+
+
+def generate_plan(role: str, level: str) -> Dict[str, object]:
+    normalized = normalize_level(level)
+    rounds = []
+    for idx, (name, minutes, focus) in enumerate(BASE_ROUNDS[normalized], start=1):
+        rounds.append(
+            {
+                "round": idx,
+                "name": name,
+                "duration_minutes": minutes,
+                "focus": focus,
+                "suggested_questions": suggested_questions(name),
+            }
+        )
+    return {
+        "role": role,
+        "level": normalized,
+        "total_rounds": len(rounds),
+        "total_minutes": sum(r["duration_minutes"] for r in rounds),
+        "rounds": rounds,
+    }
+
+
+def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Generate an interview loop plan for a role and level.")
+    parser.add_argument("--role", required=True, help="Role name (e.g., Senior Software Engineer)")
+    parser.add_argument("--level", required=True, help="Level: junior|mid|senior|staff")
+    parser.add_argument("--json", action="store_true", help="Output as JSON")
+    return parser.parse_args()
+
+
+def main() -> int:
+    args = parse_args()
+    plan = generate_plan(args.role, args.level)
+
+    if args.json:
+        print(json.dumps(plan, indent=2))
+    else:
+        print(f"Interview Plan: {plan['role']} ({plan['level']})")
+        print(f"Total rounds: {plan['total_rounds']} | Total time: {plan['total_minutes']} minutes")
+        print("")
+        for r in plan["rounds"]:
+            print(f"Round {r['round']}: {r['name']} ({r['duration_minutes']} min)")
+            print(f"Focus: {r['focus']}")
+            for q in r["suggested_questions"]:
+                print(f"- {q}")
+            print("")
+
+    return 0
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    raise SystemExit(main())