Staff Engineer Design Review Kit

System design at scale – requirements, capacity estimates (KaTeX), API, data model, HLD, deep dives, reliability, cost, trade-offs

Reference latency and unit tables, assumptions register, QPS, storage, bandwidth, cache, server and cost formulas, worked example, sensitivity, traceability

In-depth design doc – context, goals and non-goals, APIs, data, flows, alternatives matrix, cross-cutting concerns, testing, rollout, cost

Detailed ADR – Tyree & Akerman fields (assumptions, constraints, positions, argument, implications, related items) plus Y-statement

Build, buy, open source or managed service evaluation with weighted decision matrix, PoC results, risks, cost and decision

Multi-year TCO comparison of options by cost category, with NPV discounting, sensitivity, break-even and recommendation

Design review checklist in 13 areas, evidence-based scoring rubric, weighted score, red flags, findings register, decision record, 45-minute interview rubric

ATAM evaluation report – business drivers, approaches, utility tree, voted scenarios, sensitivity and trade-off points, risks, risk themes

ARB submission: context, scope, proposed architecture, alternatives, principles compliance, risk flags, decisions and outcome

Software failure modes, effects, causes, controls, S/O/D scales, RPN and action priority, actions and re-scoring

Production readiness review: SLOs, load test evidence, observability, on-call, rollback, backups, security, failure modes, sign-off