The technical runner is the most conversational of the five — your half is a self-rating, but the result depends on your manager's rating in conversation with yours. The platform is not just collecting scores; it is structuring a development conversation.
Two halves
When a technical assessment is assigned to you, it has two halves:
- Your half — a self-rating on each competency in the assessment, with an evidence note.
- Your manager's half — a manager rating on the same competencies, with the manager's own evidence note. This unlocks once you submit yours.
You go first. The platform does not show you the manager's half; the manager does not see your ratings until they have submitted theirs (so they cannot anchor on your numbers).
After both halves are in, the platform blends them and shows you the combined result.
The runner UI
For your half, the runner shows one competency at a time. For each:
- The competency name and the taxonomy's anchored level descriptions. Four anchored descriptions — Beginner, Developing, Proficient, Expert — explaining what work at each level looks like.
- A four-level selector. Pick the level that matches your honest current capability.
- An evidence field. Write 1–3 sentences explaining what you have actually done at the level you claim. I led the migration of our core service from REST to gRPC last quarter, including writing the rollout plan and managing the cutover with zero downtime.
The evidence field is where the assessment becomes useful. A self-rating without evidence is just a number; a self-rating with evidence is a claim with backing that your manager can engage with.
Time per competency
Around 5 minutes per competency is realistic — most of which is the evidence note. A six-competency assessment is therefore around 30 minutes.
You can save and come back. The runner saves between competencies.
Submission and the manager's half
When you submit, the assessment moves to a state called Awaiting manager review. Your manager receives a notification. They take their half on their own timeline — usually within a week.
Once they submit, you receive a REPORT_READY notification. The result page shows:
- Each competency, with your rating and your manager's rating side by side.
- The combined per-competency score.
- A short narrative.
- Competencies where you and your manager diverged by two or more levels are flagged for conversation.
How to take it well
- Be honest. Inflating your self-rating produces a divergence with your manager that wastes both your time. Under-rating yourself is also costly — it tells the platform less about you than the truth would.
- Write evidence in concrete terms. Led the X migration with zero downtime beats Strong technical leadership.
- Use the divergent-competency flag as a conversation starter. If your manager rated a competency higher or lower than you did, ask them what work would change their assessment in either direction. This is the highest-value moment in the assessment.
Next
The simulation runner is next — the highest-fidelity runner in the platform.