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Problem Solving Behaviors and Decision Making Questions

Covers the interpersonal and cognitive traits that shape how a candidate solves problems, including initiative, ownership, proactivity, resilience, creativity, continuous learning, and evaluating trade offs. Interviewers probe when a candidate takes initiative versus seeks help, how they balance speed versus quality, how they persist through setbacks, how they generate creative alternatives, and how they learn from outcomes. This topic assesses mindset, judgment, and the ability to make principled decisions under uncertainty.

MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You're leading a small team that just missed a sprint goal due to unforeseen complexity. How would you run the retrospective to surface root causes, assign follow-up actions, and adjust future planning to reduce the chance of recurrence?
EasyBehavioral
0 practiced
Give an example of when you had to balance speed versus quality on a deliverable (e.g., shipping a patch vs building a robust system). What trade-offs did you make, how did you mitigate technical debt, and how did you communicate the risks to stakeholders?
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
How do you evaluate multiple design alternatives for a new subsystem? Describe a real example: how you listed options, chose evaluation criteria (scalability, maintainability, cost), ran prototypes or POCs, and reached a final decision.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
Design a lightweight decision framework you would use to make technical choices under uncertainty (for example: choosing a third-party library versus building in-house). Include decision criteria, gating conditions for prototypes, and how you'd document and revisit the decision.
MediumTechnical
0 practiced
You must choose between refactoring a flaky module that causes frequent bugs and shipping a new feature that will generate measurable revenue. Describe your decision criteria, how you'd quantify costs and benefits, and how you'd present the recommendation to product and leadership.

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