Hiring scorecard: QA and Dev

This is the card I use for my QA engineers and developers. Pass or fail on work you can look at, not on how someone comes across in a meeting.

How I use it

Every row is Pass or Fail. No 1 to 5, no "strong maybe."
Every row needs a dated example from the last 30 days. No example is a Fail, not a skip.
Two people looking at the same evidence should mark the same box. If they wouldn't, the row is written wrong.
Not on the card: hobbies, who someone follows online, "curious about new tech," confidence.
Before I trusted it, I checked it against a real performance case I'd already been through. The card had to reach the same call without me adding a new rule. It did.

The rows (QA and Dev)

Escaped defects

Look at: customer bugs that got past them after they signed off (QA), or regressions they introduced that reached a customer after they said done (Dev).

Pass: no repeat in a quarter.

Fail: twice in a quarter.

Root cause

Look at: a failing case and their write-up.

Pass: a written repro within two hours that someone else can run, and it fails.

Fail: no write-up, or the steps don't fail.

For Dev it goes one step further: take the error to a place in the code and land the fix.

Response

Look at: threads and support cases they own during business hours.

Pass: a same-day reply, or "on it, here's when."

Fail: teammates pick up the thread, and they only show up when mentioned.

Ownership

Look at: work they said they would drive.

Pass: they close it without being chased, or they name the miss before I do.

Fail: it gets reassigned, or they deflect.

Helps teammates

Look at: product questions, environment help, pairing, testing when testing is the bottleneck.

Pass: they help without being asked twice.

Fail: "not my column," or silence.

Follow-through

Look at: the date they promised against the date it was done.

Pass: done when they said, or they flag the slip before the date.

Fail: someone has to chase it, and it lands at the last hour or not at all.

Dev only

Ships

Look at: a named change of theirs in a customer build this quarter.

Pass: they can name the change and the release.

Fail: no named change in a customer release this quarter.

Back to How I work.