Position Yourself as an FDE

A hiring manager at a 350-person AI consultancy has watched eleven 5-minute Loom videos from candidates for a senior FDE role. She has fifteen minutes per video, a published rubric on her left monitor, and an interview slate to send by end of day. The rubric has five dimensions; each is scored 0, 1, or 2. The pass bar is 7 out of 10, with no dimension at 0.

The April Dunford critique of positioning statements is worth holding in your head as you draft yours today. Dunford (2019) argues that the one-sentence positioning statement is overrated — most products can be positioned multiple ways, and the single sentence is a forcing function, not the answer. The same is true here. Your one-sentence FDE thesis is not your complete positioning. It is the forcing function that proves you can compress Course 1's seven prior lessons into a sentence a hiring panel can use to categorize you in under thirty seconds. The video is the proof; the thesis is the lead.

By the end of this 180-minute studio you will have: (a) one written FDE thesis that scores ≥ 1 on dimension 1 of the rubric; (b) a recorded 5-minute Loom that demonstrates the other four dimensions on screen; and (c) two peer reviews of other FDEs' videos, written using the same published rubric. Course 1 ends at minute 180.

By the end of this studio, you will be able to:

The §7 Loom + the two peer reviews IS the assessment. The rubric in §4 is the lens. Create is the load-bearing outcome; Evaluate is satisfied by applying the same rubric to two peers. The reviewing half is not a courtesy — it's what tests whether you can use the rubric as a thinking tool, not just a checklist on yourself.

Five stems — one per prior lesson the rubric will require you to demonstrate. If you cannot answer all five from recall within eight minutes, do not attempt the §7 recording yet. Reread the offending lesson's §11 flashcard, then come back to §4.

Part A · Anatomy of an FDE thesis

Your FDE thesis is a single sentence. It compresses Course 1's seven prior lessons into a form a hiring panel — or a customer sponsor, or a future you — can use to categorize you in under thirty seconds. The compression is the point. A thesis that needs three sentences is not yet a thesis.

A working thesis names five things in five clauses, in this order:

• Strongest Trinity persona (with a behavior).
• Weakest Trinity persona (named honestly, not hidden).
• Maturation stage you operate at + lifecycle stage you most protect.
• Your narrow-path bias (in operator language, not marketing language).
• Where your Companion-OS evidence lives (so the listener can verify).

The template is not a sentence you fill in once. It's a forcing function you write three drafts of, throw away two, and bring the third into §7. The April Dunford critique applies: the template is a writing tool, not a complete positioning. What you actually record in the video is what the rubric is graded against, not the sentence itself.

Part B · The published 5-dimension FDE Trinity rubric

The rubric is criterion-referenced (Hambleton & Pitoniak, 2006): each dimension is scored 0, 1, or 2 against a fixed standard, not against other candidates. The cut score for Course 1 mastery is 7/10, with no dimension at 0. A 7 with a 0 is a remediation signal; an 8 with no zeros is a pass; a 10 means the rubric did not catch enough of you.

Remediation paths — if any dimension scores 0

• D1 scores 0 → return to Lesson 1.2 §11 stem. Reread the Trinity table. Re-record only the Trinity beat.
• D2 scores 0 → return to Lessons 1.3 and 1.4 §11 stems. The dimension scores 2 only when the characteristic failure mode is named.
• D3 scores 0 → return to Lesson 1.6 §4 (three axes) and §7 (your diagram + PM defense). Show the diagram on screen on re-record.
• D4 scores 0 → return to Lesson 1.5 §6 (5-dim mirror) and §7 (commitments). Show one commitment on screen and name the rung-slip it protects against.
• D5 scores 0 → return to Lesson 1.7 §7 (populator lab). Open one slot on screen, name the slot number out loud.

Part C · Why two peer reviews, not one

Peer-review reliability research (Jonsson & Svingby, 2007) shows that a single reviewer's score against a rubric drifts more than a panel of two — and that even with a published rubric, calibration improves substantially when raters discuss disagreements. Two reviews are the minimum at which a learner can see a calibration disagreement and learn from it. The reviewing assignment is also the only place the cohort gets cross-cohort calibration on the rubric itself.

Three real-style theses, scored against the §4 rubric. The scoring shows what the rubric catches and what it does not — learn the rubric as a thinking tool before you record yours.

Five clauses, one per rubric dimension. Live checks run as you type. After the first draft, the builder compiles your five clauses into a single working thesis below — that's the sentence you bring into §7.

Scaffold drop. The five clauses are not the script — they are the underlying scaffolding that makes your spoken script possible. In §7 you may speak them in any order, combine them, or break them across the video — but the rubric scores against the five dimensions regardless of delivery.

The mastery-gate block. Three timed sub-tasks: 30 min to script, 10 min to record, 35 min to peer-review two videos. Use the tabs below.

After the recording and the two peer reviews, file in your Companion OS slot 7 (the retro for Course 1 itself):

Course 1 has taught you the operating frame, the artifact disciplines, the personal habit (founder-like ownership), and the operating system. The mastery gate is not the end of Course 1; it's the moment Course 1 becomes auditable from the outside. Your reflection is the first private audit.

Success criterion: spoken aloud from memory in 25 seconds or less, names all five rubric dimensions in five clauses, survives the §9 marketing-tone test. Re-record the video any time you cannot produce this sentence in 25 seconds — your operating frame has decayed.