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INC-9482: DB Migration CrashLoopBackOff

Triggered - P1 Critical

Assigned to

Primary On-Call

Impact

Customer checkouts failing

Environment

prod-us-east-1

Triggered by

Datadog Monitor

Incident Description

Since 04:30 UTC, the items API's readiness checks have been failing across all regions. The database migration job is stuck in CrashLoopBackOff.

Context: The platform team shipped a Terraform refactor yesterday that touched the VPC and security groups. The app pods aren't crashing, but every DB call times out.

ACTION REQUIRED: Reproduce the timeout, find the misconfiguration, and fix it via IaC.

Emergency Access

Connect via production bastion to investigate:

ssh ubuntu@13.233.238.117
Terminal sessionubuntu@13.233.238.117

ubuntu@ip-172-31-45-19 ~/lab kubectl get pods -n lab

NAMEREADYSTATUSRESTARTSredis-6b5d9d4f8-x29jk1/1Running0app-58b4566c7-l4m221/1Running0app-migrate-1-xkc890/1CrashLoopBackOff15

ubuntu@ip-172-31-45-19 ~/lab kubectl logs jobs/app-migrate -n lab

INFO [alembic.runtime.migration] Context impl PostgresqlImpl.

INFO [alembic.runtime.migration] Will assume transactional DDL.

ERROR [alembic.util.messaging] sqlalchemy.exc.OperationalError: Is the server running on that host and accepting TCP/IP connections?

ubuntu@ip-172-31-45-19 ~/lab cd deploy/infra/terraform

ubuntu@ip-172-31-45-19 ~/lab/deploy/infra/terraform

The Interview Is Broken.

Our pilot data reveals a system that's slow, subjective, and unfair to both candidates and engineering teams.

METRIC 01↑ ENG HRS
6hrs

Engineering time lost per candidate, panel sync. Multiply by your team.

METRIC 02UNDERPERF
40%

Of true hires miss expectations in their first 90 days. The interview missed something else.

METRIC 03SIGNAL
12×

More signal per minute from a debug session vs a whiteboard. Time-to-decision drops too.

METRIC 04—
0

LeetCode problems solved on the job, ever. The map is not the territory.

The Interview Isn't Hard. It's Fake.

Three Steps. No Panel.

From scenario to hiring decision in under 5 minutes.

01

Pick a scenario

A library of pre-built broken environments — or define your own in YAML.

  • Pick template
  • Set fault
  • Set budget

payments-svc

Connection pool exhausted

45m

redis-outage

Cache layer failure

30m

auth-failure

Token validation bug

35m
View all scenarios
02

Send the link

Candidate clicks, drops into the live environment in under 5 seconds.

  • Provision
  • Browser shell
  • No SSH leak
  • Recorded
  • Idle tracking
Live SessionREC
$ kubectl get pods
api-gateway  CrashLoopBackOff  6
payments-svc Error          4
redis        Running         0

$ kubectl logs payments-svc
ERR connection pool exhausted
ERR timeout acquiring client
● Browser terminalNo SSHNo copyTracked
03

Read the report

AI evaluates across 6 dimensions. Get a structured report you can act on instantly.

  • Action graph
  • Score 6 dims
  • Weighted total
  • Replay link
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AI Evaluation Report

Debugging
9.2
Reasoning
8.8
Impact
9
Efficiency
8.6
Communication
8.2
Ownership
9.1

Overall verdict

8.7 / 10

Strong Hire

Score the Scorers.

Head-to-head comparison of how we evaluate.

Capability

what teams actually need

Coding-Test SAAS

incumbent, gen 1

Live Interview SAAS

incumbent, gen 2

Scenr

est. 2023

Real stack environments
FAIL
FAIL
A+CORE
Process scoring (not output)
FAIL
PARTIAL
A+NATIVE
Self-hosted / VPC
NO
NO
ASHIPPED
Onboarding ramp
NO
NO
AYES
Day-1 signal vs day-90 outcome
LOW
MID
A+HIGH
Feels like the actual job
NO
SOMETIMES
AALWAYS

GPA

Final score

0.0

F

1.3

D+

3.95

A

Hire. Onboard. Drill.

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Real environments

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Calibrated & fair

Rubrics built by senior engineers

Scenario

Redis Pool Failure

Critical

Multiple services impacted

Candidate Session

Live
$ kubectl logs
$ kubectl get pods
$ kubectl describe svc

Evaluation

Debugging
9.2/10
Ownership
8.9/10

Field Report.

Real outcomes from real companies using Scenr.

SOURCE/01 · ENG-LEAD-FT-001

“This is the interview I wish I had given our last ten hires.”

Engineering Lead

Series B Fintech

SOURCE/02 · STAFF-PLAT-002

“Finally something that tests what actually matters on day one.”

Staff Engineer

Platform Team · 50 Eng

SOURCE/03 · HR-DIR-003

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