The customer asks whether the pilot is ready for production. What would you check before recommending launch?

Example Answer

I'd recommend a specific release scope supported by customer acceptance evidence and an operating owner. I'd check representative inputs, important exceptions, effective permissions, expected workload and dependency failures. A successful demonstration or passing unit suite does not answer all of those questions.

The team operating the deployment needs useful monitoring, support ownership and a tested way to stop harmful actions. For writes, we'd verify data recovery as well as software rollback. I'd make the entry checks, stop conditions and next review explicit. Where a bounded rollout can control exposure and the authorized owner accepts the remaining uncertainty, I'd recommend it. Where a critical dependency or operating safeguard is missing, I'd exclude the affected scope and name what must happen before it can launch.

Make it your own

Use customer-specific acceptance criteria and operational owners. A limited rollout reduces exposure; it does not excuse missing authorization or an unusable recovery plan.

Why this works

Connects a technical pilot to a bounded production recommendation and the people responsible for operating it.

Interviewer follow-up

The customer says all unit tests passed. Why do you need more evidence?

Unit tests cover particular code behavior. I'd also verify the real integration contract, effective permissions, representative workload and recovery path with the customer. Passing tests do not tell us whether the operator can detect a stalled job or recover an incorrect write. I'd show which remaining check supports the production decision rather than add testing without a clear purpose.

Assessment criteria

These are practice criteria for this scenario, not an employer's scoring rubric.

• Strong: Makes a scope-specific launch decision from representative correctness, effective access, workload, stop/recovery checks and operating ownership.
• Adequate: Identifies key production prerequisites and a bounded rollout.
• Weak: Treats a demo or unit test pass as complete operational evidence.

A tempting weak answer

"All our tests pass, so I'd tell them it is production-ready."

Why it fails: The answer does not establish what was tested or whether permissions, real dependencies and recovery work in the deployed path.

References

• Google SRE engagement and production responsibilities
• Google SRE release evaluation and canaries