Navigate cross-functional conflict to deliver outcomes
Overview
This question evaluates cross-functional leadership, stakeholder management, decision-making under conflict, regulatory risk awareness, and the ability to document trade-offs and deliver measurable outcomes in a Data Scientist role.
Capital One
Oct 13, 2025, 9:49 PM
Data Scientist
Technical Screen
Behavioral & Leadership
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Behavioral & Leadership: Coordinating Across Conflicting Departments (Data Scientist)
Context
You are interviewing for a Data Scientist role in a regulated environment. Provide a concrete, end-to-end example demonstrating cross-functional leadership, decision-making under conflict, and measurable impact.
Prompt
Describe a specific project where you coordinated among at least three departments (e.g., Product, Legal/Compliance, Risk/Underwriting) with conflicting goals.
Include:
- Business objective: What was the explicit goal and success criteria?
- Stakeholders and conflicts: Name the departments (≥3) and the precise points of disagreement.
- Decision-making framework: What structure did you use to break deadlocks (e.g., DACI/RACI, decision matrix, guardrails)?
- Artifacts: What documents/trackers did you create (e.g., decision log, RACI) and how were they used?
- Trade-offs: How did you negotiate scope/time/quality and why?
- Outcome: The measurable result versus baseline.
- Counterfactual: If one constraint changed (e.g., Legal had veto power), what would you do differently and why?
Solution
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