Unblocking and Problem Solving Questions

Assess the candidate's ability to identify, triage, and remove technical and organizational blockers that prevent teams from delivering. Expect examples of diagnosing root causes, choosing between short term workarounds and long term investments, facilitating cross functional conversations, escalating when appropriate, and bringing in external expertise. Strong responses clarify the leader's role versus the engineering team's role, demonstrate technical judgment and situational leadership, describe decision making under time pressure, and show measurable outcomes such as reduced mean time to resolution, restored availability, or accelerated delivery cadence. Candidates should also highlight process changes they instituted to prevent recurrence.