Problem Solving in Ambiguous Situations Questions

Evaluates structured approaches to diagnosing and resolving complex or ill defined problems when data is limited or constraints conflict. Key skills include decomposing complexity, root cause analysis, hypothesis formation and testing, rapid prototyping and experimentation, iterative delivery, prioritizing under constraints, managing stakeholder dynamics, and documenting lessons learned. Interviewers look for examples that show bias to action when appropriate, risk aware iteration, escalation discipline, measurement of outcomes, and the ability to coordinate cross functional work to close gaps in ambiguous contexts. Senior assessments emphasize strategic trade offs, scenario planning, and the ability to orchestrate multi team solutions.

EasyTechnical

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Write the outline of a postmortem (incidents and outages) for a bug that caused incorrect billing for a small cohort of customers over three days. Include sections and brief content for timeline, root cause analysis, immediate remediation, long-term fixes, and communication plan to customers and internal teams.

MediumSystem Design

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Create a concise incident response plan for intermittent failures caused by a third-party API that sometimes returns malformed data. Include detection, mitigation, communication to customers, and long-term fixes that don't rely solely on the third party improving their behavior.

HardTechnical

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As a senior engineer, you must create a strategy when multiple product teams want incompatible platform changes and the company signals unclear priorities. Describe how you would create alignment, propose decision criteria, and drive a plan that minimizes wasted engineering effort while keeping strategic options open.

HardBehavioral

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Tell me about a time you led a cross-org initiative to close a major gap in a complex product where requirements were ambiguous and teams had conflicting incentives. Focus on the concrete steps you took to build consensus, how you measured progress, and how you handled political resistance.

MediumTechnical

0 practiced

Given server logs in CSV format with rows (user_id, session_id, start_ts, end_ts) where timestamps may be missing or out of order, design and implement in Java a reliable method to deduplicate overlapping sessions per user. State assumptions about missing values, performance constraints, and how you would validate correctness on production data.

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