Deep-dive a recent project
Overview
This prompt evaluates architectural thinking, technical leadership, system design, and communication skills within the Behavioral & Leadership category for software engineering, testing a candidate's ability to explain goals, responsibilities, architecture, trade-offs, timelines, and outcome metrics.
Datadog
Sep 6, 2025, 12:00 AM
Software Engineer
Technical Screen
Behavioral & Leadership
0
0
Deep-Dive a Recent Project (Technical Screen)
Provide a structured walkthrough of one recent project you led or significantly contributed to. Choose a project from the last 6–18 months where you can speak to architecture and decisions.
Cover the following in order:
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Problem and Context
- What was broken or insufficient? Who was affected? Where does this sit in the system?
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Goals and Constraints
- Business and technical goals with quantified targets (e.g., latency, throughput, SLOs, scale, cost, security/compliance).
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Your Responsibilities and Decisions
- Your role, ownership boundaries, and the key decisions you personally made.
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Architecture and Key Components
- Current vs. target state; data flow; services; storage; interfaces/APIs; deployment/runtime.
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Trade-offs and Alternatives Considered
- Options compared, pros/cons, and why you chose your path (e.g., CAP, build vs. buy, batch vs. streaming).
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Timeline and Risks
- Milestones, dependencies, risks, and mitigations.
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Metrics for Success and Actual Results
- SLIs/SLOs, before/after metrics, reliability, cost, user impact.
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Postmortem and What You’d Change
- Lessons learned, what you’d do differently, and follow-ups.
Aim for 5–7 minutes for the walkthrough plus Q&A.
Solution
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