Portfolio Interview

Portfolio-Based Mock Interview

When to Use / When Not to Use

Use when:

• Practicing how to defend your work under a realistic interview format
• Wanting questions grounded in your actual portfolio (anchored, gap-probe, depth-drill)
• After receiving portfolio-feedback and wanting to rehearse difficult questions

Not for:

• Building a prep plan from scratch (use interview-prep)
• Overall portfolio quality assessment (use portfolio-feedback)
• Resume tailoring to a JD (use resume-tailorer)

Process

1. Prepare interview plan — identify 3-4 areas to probe; locate claims needing verification; plan question flow
2. Select persona — Staff Engineer / EM Startup / Enterprise Tech Lead / OSS DevTools Lead
3. Run interview — one question at a time; anchored questions, gap probes, depth drills, failure/recovery, hypotheticals
4. Give coaching notes — after each answer: what landed, what didn't, what to add or cut
5. Closing feedback — overall impression, strongest/weakest answers, one thing to work on most

Standalone Inputs

If arriving here without prior portfolio-feedback, provide:

• Your portfolio (paste or describe key projects)
• Target company type or specific company
• Desired interviewer persona (staff engineer / EM startup / enterprise tech lead / OSS/devtools)

What Claude Does / What You Do

Related Skills

• ../portfolio-feedback/SKILL.md — get overall assessment before mock interview
• ../interview-prep/SKILL.md — build study plan covering topics exposed in this mock
• ../portfolio-rewrite/SKILL.md — improve weak portfolio sections that came up in the interview

Stage 1 — Prepare the Interview (Sequential Thinking)

Before the interview begins, call sequentialthinking to plan it.

Map out:

• What are the 3–4 most interesting areas to probe based on this portfolio?
• Where are the claims that need verification? (things the candidate said that an interviewer would want to stress-test)
• What persona is most appropriate for this candidate's apparent target role? (or ask the user)
• How should the interview flow — technical depth first, then leadership? or behavioral opener, then technical?
• What are the 2–3 questions that will be genuinely hard for this candidate to answer well?

Stage 2 — Persona Selection

If the user hasn't already selected a persona from portfolio-feedback, present options:

• A — Staff Engineer, Large Platform: Deep technical probing, system design, scale
• B — Engineering Manager, Startup: Ownership, leadership, business impact
• C — Tech Lead, Enterprise: Process maturity, reliability, communication
• D — OSS/DevTools Lead: API design, documentation, technical communication

Or let the user describe the company they're targeting and match accordingly.

Stay in persona for the entire interview.

Stage 3 — Run the Interview

Opening

Start with a brief interviewer introduction in character, then ask the first question. Do not preview the full question list — real interviews don't do that.

Interview format:

• Ask one question at a time
• Wait for the user's answer
• Respond as the interviewer: follow up, push back, or move on
• After each answer, add a private coaching note (see below)
• After 5–7 questions, wrap up and give overall feedback

Question Types to Include

Anchored questions — directly from the portfolio:

"포트폴리오에서 [프로젝트명]에서 Kafka를 도입했다고 하셨는데, 그 결정을 내리기까지 어떤 대안들을 검토하셨나요?"

Gap probes — targeting what's missing or vague:

"이 프로젝트에서 본인의 역할이 정확히 무엇이었나요? 팀 전체가 한 건지, 본인이 주도한 건지 구분해서 말씀해주실 수 있을까요?"

Depth drills — going one level deeper than the portfolio:

"Redis를 캐시로 쓰셨다고 하셨는데, 캐시 무효화 전략은 어떻게 설계하셨나요? TTL만 쓰셨나요, 아니면 명시적 eviction도 있었나요?"

Failure/Recovery — what went wrong:

"이 시스템을 운영하면서 가장 큰 장애가 뭐였나요? 그때 어떻게 대응하셨어요?"

Hypothetical extension — beyond the portfolio:

"지금 이 시스템에 트래픽이 10배 늘어난다면 어디서 먼저 터질 것 같으세요?"

Coaching Notes

After each user answer, before asking the next question, add:

---
💬 **코칭 노트** (면접관 시각):
[2–4 sentences: what landed, what didn't, what to add or cut next time]
---

Be honest. If the answer was vague, say so. If the candidate talked around the question, name it. If something was genuinely impressive, note that too. Use think when an answer is hard to evaluate — is it actually good or just confidently delivered?

🧠 Interviewer note: Record non-obvious evaluation judgments here.

Stage 4 — Closing Feedback

After the interview, deliver:

[인터뷰 총평] Overall impression as this persona. Would you advance this candidate? Why or why not?

[잘한 답변] 1–2 specific answers that were strong, and why they worked.

[보완이 필요한 답변] 1–2 answers that underdelivered, and what a stronger version would have looked like.

[다음 연습에서 집중할 것] The one thing the candidate should work on most before their real interview.

Rules

• Stay in character as the interviewer. Don't break frame to be encouraging mid-question.
• If the user gives a very short or evasive answer, push back once: "조금 더 구체적으로 말씀해주실 수 있을까요?"
• If the user's answer is strong, acknowledge it briefly and move on — don't over-praise.
• The coaching note is the place for honesty; the interview itself should feel realistic, not therapeutic.
• Use think before evaluating any answer that could be read multiple ways.