INFERENCE Lab Engineering Fellowship — Screening Repository

Cohort 01 · Pre-Screening Task

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This repository is used exclusively for the pre-screening stage of the INFERENCE Lab Engineering Fellowship, Cohort 01. If you have received a shortlisting email, this is where you submit your screening task.

If you have not received a shortlisting email, this repository is not relevant to your application at this stage.

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Before You Begin

Read these instructions completely before doing anything. Candidates who start without reading fully are the ones who submit with the wrong branch name or wrong PR title — and have to resubmit.

You will need:

• Git installed on your machine (git --version should return a version number)
• A GitHub account
• Basic familiarity with forking, cloning, branching, and opening a Pull Request

If any of those are unfamiliar, the Student Handbook in this repo has a Git quick-reference section.

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Task Instructions

Follow these steps in order. Do not skip steps.

Step 1 — Fork this repository

Click Fork at the top right of this page on GitHub. Fork it to your personal GitHub account — not an organisation.

Step 2 — Clone your fork

git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/fellowship-screening.git
cd fellowship-screening

Replace YOUR_USERNAME with your actual GitHub username.

Step 3 — Create your branch

git checkout -b screening/YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME

Replace YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME with your actual GitHub username. The branch name must follow this exact format. A branch named my-branch, feature/task, or anything other than screening/yourusername will be considered incorrectly submitted.

Step 4 — Create your submission file

Inside the /submissions folder, create a new file named:

YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME.md

For example, if your GitHub username is ali_dev, create submissions/ali_dev.md.

Do not create any other files or folders. Do not modify any existing files.

Step 5 — Write your submission

Your .md file must contain the following four sections, in this order:

## Name
[Your full name]

## Project and Role
[The project you applied for and the specific role: Lead Engineer / Research Engineer / Integration Engineer]

## Expected Contribution
[One paragraph — what specifically do you expect to contribute in your assigned role?
Reference the actual project. Generic answers ("I will work hard and learn") will not pass this stage.]

## Question
[One question you have about the project after reading the project brief.
This question must show you actually read the brief — not a general question about the fellowship.]

Step 6 — Commit your work

git add submissions/YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME.md
git commit -m "add screening submission for YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME"

The commit message must be clear and descriptive. A commit message of update, done, or task is a signal we note.

Step 7 — Push your branch

git push origin screening/YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME

Step 8 — Open a Pull Request

Go to the original Inference-LAB/fellowship-screening repository — not your fork. You should see a prompt to open a Pull Request from your recently pushed branch. Click it.

PR Title — must follow this exact format:

[Screening] Your Full Name — Project Name — Role

Examples:

[Screening] Muhammad Ali — docling-pk — Research Engineer
[Screening] Sara Ahmed — llm-eval-kit — Lead Engineer

PR Description — must contain:

• What you added (one sentence)
• Why the content of your .md file reflects your genuine interest in the role (one to two sentences)

Do not copy-paste from the instructions. Write it yourself.

Step 9 — Confirm

After submitting, confirm the following yourself before the deadline:

• Branch name is exactly screening/your-github-username
• PR title follows the exact format above
• PR description is written in your own words
• Your .md file is inside the /submissions folder
• Your .md file contains all four required sections
• You submitted before the deadline

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Deadline

48 hours from the time you received the shortlisting email.

The deadline is firm. If you have a genuine blocker — technical or otherwise — message the lab director before the deadline, not after.

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What We Are Evaluating

This task is simple by design. We are not testing your ability to write complex code. We are checking:

1. Can you follow precise instructions under a short deadline?
2. Do you communicate clearly in writing?
3. Did you actually read the project brief you applied for?
4. Do you self-check your work before submitting?

A candidate who submits with an incorrect branch name, notices it themselves, fixes it, and opens a corrected PR without being asked has demonstrated more than someone who got it right the first time. Self-correction matters.

A candidate who submits with an incorrect branch name and does nothing further has told us something important about how they will behave in a 6-week sprint when their PR is sent back for changes.

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Questions

If something in these instructions is genuinely unclear, open an Issue in this repository with the title:

[Question] Your Name — your question here

Do not DM the lab director for task clarifications — ask here so the answer is visible to all shortlisted candidates.

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Repository Structure

fellowship-screening/
├── README.md                          ← you are here
├── submissions/                       ← put your file here
│   └── .gitkeep
├── docs/
│   ├── project_briefs.md              ← summary of both projects
│   └── git_quickref.md               ← Git commands reference
└── .github/
    ├── PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md       ← auto-fills your PR description
    └── ISSUE_TEMPLATE/
        └── question.md               ← template for asking questions

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