Platform engineers build the infrastructure everyone else depends on. Our assessments test multi-service debugging across API gateways, service mesh, and internal APIs - the complex failures that block entire engineering teams.
20-30 min assessments · Service mesh debugging · Multi-service tracing · Internal API troubleshooting
Platform engineers debug across layers. Our assessments test the ability to trace failures through interconnected systems.
Scenarios involve API gateway → auth service → database failures. Candidates must trace requests across service boundaries and identify which layer is actually broken.
Live dashboards show how many internal teams are blocked. Platform engineers need to understand blast radius - not just fix their component.
Track whether candidates fix issues in the correct dependency order. Platform changes affect everyone - we measure who understands that responsibility.
Platform engineers don't just use infrastructure - they build what everyone else uses. When they can't debug their own platform, everyone's blocked.
Platform engineers debug across service meshes, API gateways, authentication layers, and internal APIs. They need to trace issues through multiple hops and understand the interactions.
When platform services fail, every engineering team is blocked. The best platform engineers understand their role as internal infrastructure providers and act accordingly.
Platform work requires understanding the full stack - from container networking through service mesh to application protocols. Surface-level knowledge isn't enough.
Complex multi-service scenarios that mirror the debugging platform engineers do daily.
Your edge API gateway is returning 503s, blocking all external traffic. Three compounding issues: service selector mismatch, readiness probe failure, and DNS policy blocking internal resolution. Tests multi-factor diagnosis and staged remediation.
Internal API consumers are getting 502 errors due to a malformed JSON gateway configuration. Candidates must trace the config pipeline, identify the syntax error, fix safely, and verify without breaking active connections.
41% of your compute fleet is impaired - DiskPressure, MemoryPressure, PIDPressure, and NotReady nodes across multiple failure modes. Platform engineers must safely remediate at scale without causing additional workload disruption.
A Redis-backed service container can't connect to its datastore. Tests container networking understanding - port mapping, service discovery, DNS within containers, and inter-container communication debugging.
Kong, Istio, Linkerd, custom gateways - we build scenarios that mirror your internal platform architecture and common failure modes.
Talk to UsSee how candidates move between services - do they check upstream dependencies before blaming downstream? Do they understand request flow through your platform?
Track whether candidates investigate fully or stop at surface symptoms. Do they check impact on internal customers? Do they communicate status? Platform mindset matters.
See who validates config changes before applying. Do they test in isolation first? Do they understand the blast radius of platform changes?
Command history reveals systems thinking - do they understand why services fail together? Do they see patterns in distributed system failures?
Platform engineers must fix things without breaking other services. See who plans staged remediation vs who applies changes blindly.
Best platform engineers think about their internal users. Track whether candidates verify service restoration from the customer perspective.
Platform engineers build internal infrastructure that other teams use - API gateways, service meshes, internal developer platforms, compute abstractions. DevOps often focuses on CI/CD and deployment pipelines. SRE focuses on reliability and incident response for production services. Platform engineering requires understanding multi-service interactions, internal customer needs, and building systems that scale across engineering teams. Our assessments focus on debugging these complex internal systems when they fail.
Yes. We can build scenarios that mirror your internal platform - your API gateway (Kong, Ambassador, nginx), your service mesh (Istio, Linkerd, Consul), your internal APIs, your common failure modes. The assessment tests transferable debugging skills while using familiar tooling and patterns. Contact us to discuss custom scenario development for your platform stack.
No - we use industry-standard tooling (kubectl, Docker, curl, system tools) that any experienced platform engineer should know. The skills transfer: if they can debug an Istio service mesh issue in our environment, they can debug Linkerd in yours. The core platform engineering patterns - understanding request flow, debugging distributed systems, safe configuration changes - are universal. We can also create custom scenarios using your specific tooling if needed.
See how candidates debug internal infrastructure before they own your platform.