Capstone Three: Zero to One

1. The Brief

You are the first senior engineer at a company building a marketplace for specialist contract work. There is a working prototype, no paying customers, and funding for about two years. The team will be five engineers including you. Design the system, and the plan for getting there.

Write your answer first. This one rewards thirty minutes more than the other two, because the temptation it tests shows up immediately.

The brief has a trap in it, and the trap is the most interesting part of the exercise.

**Nothing in it asks for scale