# Review the checkout outage

“Review the checkout outage” is a site reliability engineer job simulation on FinderK. You work at Pantry Lane, an original fictional company, and complete 3 assignments in about 75 minutes. It is for anyone who wants to practice site reliability engineer work. No previous work experience is required.

- Role: Site reliability engineer
- Industry: DevOps and site reliability
- Career: IT operations and incident management (https://finderk.com/careers/it-operations)
- Level: Intermediate
- Time: About 75 minutes, 3 assignments
- Access: Included in Plus
- Created by: FinderK
- Work tools: Mail, Office documents and spreadsheets, Calendar, Chat, Notes
- Page: https://finderk.com/simulations/review-the-checkout-outage
- Last updated: 2026-10-10

## Summary

Customers could not pay for about an hour and a half on a busy Saturday. Rebuild the timeline and impact from the logs, write a blameless review that fixes conditions rather than people, book the review and brief customer care without promising what you cannot keep.

## Full brief

You are a site reliability engineer at an online grocer. On Saturday a configuration change meant for testing reached production, an alert fired sixteen minutes late, a database failover made things worse and a rollback reached only some copies of the service. A vice president wants the engineer named. You work out the timeline and impact from the records, apply the error budget policy, write the review with contributing factors and owned actions, then book the meeting and tell customer care what happened. Automated checks confirm your figures and saved work; your judgement is reviewed against the standard for the role.

## What is Pantry Lane?

Pantry Lane is a fictional online grocery service delivering to about 140,000 customers. Checkout runs on ten service copies, an orders database and a payment gateway provider. This case runs from Monday 19 to Thursday 22 October 2026, after a Saturday incident. All times are UTC. The site reliability engineer writes the review and proposes actions; action owners and team heads accept them, and customer care decides what customers are offered.

## Who do you play?

You are the site reliability engineer in the Platform engineering team. You write post-incident reviews and propose actions. Action owners and team heads accept actions; Paolo Ferreira declares any change freeze on checkout. Customer care decides what customers are told and offered. You follow the blameless review guide, including when senior people ask otherwise.

## What will you do?

1. 1. Rebuild the timeline and measure the impact (25 minutes)
2. 2. Write the blameless review (30 minutes)
3. 3. Book the review and brief customer care (20 minutes)

## Which skills will you practice?

- Reconstruct an incident timeline from logs and records
- Measure customer impact and error budget use
- Write a blameless review that names conditions, not people
- Turn contributing factors into owned actions
- Brief non-engineers honestly about an incident

## Frequently asked questions

### How long does “Review the checkout outage” take?

About 75 minutes, across 3 assignments. When the time is up, you get 10 minutes to round up and submit. Pausing stops the clock.

### Is “Review the checkout outage” free?

No. It is included in FinderK Plus. With a free account you can also do it without grading.

### Do I need site reliability engineer experience?

No. No previous work experience is required. The listed level is intermediate.

### What do I get when I finish?

You get feedback on each assignment you submit. Completing all required assignments earns a completion certificate. It records participation and is not professional accreditation.

### Is Pantry Lane a real company?

No. Pantry Lane is an original fictional company made for practice. Its coworkers may make mistakes, so check their suggestions against the evidence.