They talk about dashboards, not decisions
Stories about outputs rather than outcomes. "I built a retention dashboard" with no mention of what changed because of it.
Outputs without outcomes = operator, not leader
No instrumentation decisions they can describe
Cannot explain their event taxonomy, naming conventions, or property schema. They used a system someone else designed.
No instrumentation ownership = no foundational skill
Success framed as report volume
Impact measured by how many reports they produced, not by how many decisions they changed. High volume is reactive, not strategic.
Volume metrics = reactive function
No opinion on your activation event
After reviewing your product, they should have hypotheses about meaningful early behavioural milestones. No opinion means no product intuition.
No diagnostic opinions = not ready for this work
Over-indexed on tooling
Identity built around expertise in one tool. Struggles with instrumentation from first principles or evaluating whether the tool is even right.
Tool expert ≠ analytics leader