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Ask HN: Which behavioral interview questions must a SWE be prepared for?

13 points by abbadadda ↗ HN
I have an upcoming SWE interview. Four rounds will be technical and one is "tell me about a time when..." types of questions. As someone trying to transition into SWE from a position of 50% programming and 50% other stuff, what types of behavioral questions must I be prepared to answer? The first thing that comes to mind is "tell me about the hardest bug you've ever dealt with" or something like that. Any other questions I must be prepared for to prove my mettle as a Software Engineer?

11 comments

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sova
Some incredibly skeptical hiring manager asked me once, "Tell me about a time you had to deal with a deadline."
pinewurst
I hate those things so much. Amazon almost solely uses them and it's not even a conversation - just a sequence of "tell me about a time when you failed" with every word of response typed into their laptops.

I had a phone interview yesterday which I presumed would be all about what I've done and how I could do the job. The hiring manager was ex-Amazon (surprise!) so it was a litany of "tell me about"s instead.

In the Amazon case, at least one can look at the Bezos Commandments ("The Leadership Principles"(tm)) and mock up answers in advance - twice to take care of double asks. It's hard to predict by comparison what some random is going to use.

abbadadda
It is Google for reference, but good to know on Amazon!
natalyarostova
> I had a phone interview yesterday which I presumed would be all about what I've done and how I could do the job

The trick is to answer the questions in a way that provides data such that it highlights what you did. For interview debriefs we need to provide explicit data points. At first I was put off by the mechanical nature, but I now do feel it at least attempts to have a more objective and lower bias standard.

...although some people take it too far IMO. I try to keep the behavioral questions more of a fluid conversation about work they've done.

pinewurst
Thanks for that insight. What blocks me is the seeming emphasis on failure rather than success. The latter is so much easier to incorporate my contributions. The former just ends up making me feel bad then and afterward.
sethammons
When you are asked about a failure, it is not to make you feel bad, it is to see how you deal with and learn from mistakes. There are learning opportunities in failure, usually less so in successes.
gesman
And then weeks after - the next hit-and-run Amazon recruiter will keep pestering you for "new amazing opportunities" at Amazon.
source99
Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager...
gesman
There is never disagreement - there is always "productive discussion"
gesman
Redefine the word "failure" for them.

Convert it to "learning experience" or "amazing opportunity to discover".

This way it will be hard for them to put you down no matter how hard they'll try by their books.

You may also quote Bezos a few times and make sure they are aware you are quoting Bezos (if you're interviewing at AMZN).

diehunde
They are so cliche. The ones I hear the most are about that time you had a hard time doing X and also that time when you disagreed with someone like your manager or a client and how did you deal with those.