Behavioral: Your Most Challenging Project (Software Engineer Onsite)
Provide a concise, structured story about a challenging project. Use a STAR-L flow (Situation, Task, Actions, Results, Learnings) and address each of the prompts below.
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Project overview
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What was the goal? Why did it matter?
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Key constraints (e.g., time, scale, legacy systems, compliance/security, cost, availability/SLOs).
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Your role and scope (IC/lead, ownership areas, team size).
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Cross-functional collaboration (XFN)
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How you partnered with Product, Design, and Partner Engineering (e.g., platform/billing/infra teams).
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Alignment artifacts (PRD, design doc/RFC, wireframes, ADRs), decision forums, escalation paths.
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Handling disagreements and reaching decisions.
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Ambiguity and alignment
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What was unclear (requirements, definitions, success criteria, technical feasibility)?
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How you created clarity (spikes, data, experiments, decision records) and aligned stakeholders.
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Trade-offs and decisions
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Major trade-offs (e.g., build vs. buy, latency vs. cost, accuracy vs. complexity, time-to-market vs. scope).
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Criteria used and why you chose the final path.
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Success and outcomes
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How you measured success (baselines, target metrics/SLOs, adoption, reliability, cost).
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Final outcomes and impact.
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Learnings
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What you learned, and what you'd do differently next time.