Questions categories

• Scope (scale of the work)
• Ownership (initiative and driving outcome, sometimes outside your scope, SLI/SLO, incident handling)
• Ambiguity (making decisions with incomplete info, turning unclear goals into clear requirements, complex project)
• Perseverance (pushing through challenges, building something at pace)
• Conflict resolution
• Growth (learning, willingness to change, self-awareness, feedback, failure)
• Communication (influencing others and sharing ideas clearly, collaboration with different crafts)
• Leadership (guiding teams and decisions, mentoring)

Typical questions

The big 3

• Tell me about yourself
• Conflict
• Favourite project

Other questions

• Tell me about a time when you made short term sacrifices for long term gains
• How have you adopted AI in your workflows? Walk through some examples
• Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult stakeholder
• Why should we NOT hire you
• Tell me about a time you built something end to end without relying on others
• How do you respond if the team doesn't agree with your ideas
• Conflict with someone, how did you resolve and what did you learn
• Time where you tackled a complex problem
• Most challenging situation in your career
• Project you're the most proud of
• Time where you made a difficult decision
• Tell me about a time you had to persuade others to change direction.
• Tell me about a time you disagreed with Product.
• Tell me about a difficult trade-off

Suggestions from ChatGPT

Ownership / ambiguity

• Tell me about a time you took ownership of an ambiguous problem.
• Tell me about a time nobody was clearly responsible for something.
• Tell me about a time you had to make progress without much direction.

Conflict / influence

• Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone.
• Tell me about a time you had to convince someone.
• Tell me about a time you received pushback on your approach.
• Tell me about a time you had to work with someone difficult.

Failure / self-awareness

• Tell me about a mistake you made.
• Tell me about something that didn't go to plan.
• What's some difficult feedback you've received?
• What would your last manager say you should improve?

Pace / prioritisation

• Tell me about a time you had to move very quickly.
• Tell me about a time you had competing priorities.
• Tell me about something you deliberately chose not to do.
• How do you decide when something is good enough to ship?

Leadership

• Tell me about someone you've helped develop.
• Tell me about a time you led without formal authority.
• Tell me about a time you had to delegate.
• How do you balance being hands-on with helping others?

Culture

• What kind of environment brings out your best work?
• What frustrates you in a workplace?
• What do you value in teammates?
• What makes a great engineer?
• What do you do when you strongly disagree with your manager?

Principle answers

What does good engineering mean to you?

Your answer could be:

“Good engineering is solving the right problem with an appropriate level of complexity. I care about the craft, but I'm pragmatic about it—I want systems that are reliable and maintainable without building things the product doesn't need.”

That's very aligned with what you've told me about yourself.

How do you handle ambiguity?

“I try to turn ambiguity into a series of concrete decisions. I'll make the important assumptions explicit, get a simple version working, and use what I learn to refine the solution rather than waiting for complete certainty.”

How do you handle disagreement?

“I try to separate being attached to an idea from being committed to the outcome. I'll argue for my position clearly, understand the other person's reasoning, and change my mind if the evidence supports it.”

What environment do you like?

“I like high ownership, strong peers, direct communication and a focus on outcomes. I don't mind process when it helps the team move faster or operate safely; I don't enjoy process that becomes an end in itself.”

Response delivery

CARL is better than STAR
You have the skills and experience - the hard part is convincing others you do

Resource

TODO Blog - Why the Behavioral Interview Matters
https://www.tryexponent.com/questions?type=behavioral
https://www.hellointerview.com/learn/behavioral/course/why-the-behavioral-matters