From the course: Job Interview Tips for Software Engineers
How to approach this question
From the course: Job Interview Tips for Software Engineers
How to approach this question
- This is one of my favorite questions as a hiring manager, and quite a few engineers are not well prepared to answer it. Today's engineers expect a lot of agency when it comes to decision making. This question tests whether you, as an engineer, can make the most of this power, it evaluates whether you can bring industry knowledge, persuasion skills, besides your technical depth. So here's how I would answer this question. First, set context. What was the scope? Who was the customer? What goals were you trying to achieve? Second, describe the feedback. Highlight how your customers had opinions and ideas on how your work should be done. Third, explain how it ended. Demonstrate how you used all the customer input, and your own instincts, and your own research, to shape your strategy, and then adjusted your plans. When you build certain kinds of products for certain kinds of customers, for example, high-value, high-visibility customer-facing UI products, your technical skills only get you part of the way. You need the ability to research the market, perform trial and error, do some industry benchmarking, and then constantly adapt your solution. This question, and your answer to it, will show whether or not you can just execute based on somebody else's direction, or whether you can shape what gets built, how, and why.
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