Given a file-system hierarchy and timestamped permission changes, can user X access file F at time T?
The reported ElevenLabs live round, written in a shared Google Doc, no execution, no autocomplete. Inherited folder permissions plus permission-change timestamps, and the two-axis resolution rule that keeps the code to thirty lines.
Updated Sep 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.
The reported ElevenLabs live round, written in a shared Google Doc, no execution, no autocomplete. Inherited folder permissions plus permission-change timestamps, and the two-axis resolution rule that keeps the code to thirty lines.
Lead with where the obvious approach breaks, because that is the judgment they are screening for — most candidates jump straight to the happy path and lose the room.
Then walk the failure back through the pipeline in order, naming the one metric the customer's exec sponsor actually cares about before you propose the fix.
