A standard for engineering ability — and the network built on it.

AI now produces code, completes take-homes, and clones writing style. Resumes are noisier than they have been in twenty years. Phone screens never caught identity in the first place. Without a standard, senior is a self-reported word.

The engine exists because the signal under engineering hiring broke and nothing replaced it. A senior in the field, on the record, looking at real work with the candidate in the room — that's the missing rung. The standard is the way it goes back in.

Clearing the standard takes about two and a half hours of real work: a domain assessment, a take-home lab, and a live session with a senior engineer in the field. Identity is re-verified at placement, so the engineer verified is the engineer who starts.

The live session carries the weight — a lab shows what someone can produce; a senior in the room shows whether they understand it.

The standard is the product. Everything else runs on top of it.

A senior isn't checking whether an answer can be produced — tools produce answers. They're checking whether the engineer can reason about their own work: why this design, where it broke, what they'd change.

AI assists where signal is harder to see by hand: calibrating the bar against a domain, scoring at scale, surfacing patterns across attempts. A senior signs off on whether the engineer cleared the bar. No model decides alone.

The standard proves a real engineer did real work and could defend it to someone senior. It doesn't claim more than that.

Senior through lead and engineering management — the standard is about depth a title can't show, so there are no junior tiers. A domain is added when a senior in it can run the standard.