Describe handling pressure and present your work

Q: Describe handling pressure and present your work

This is a Behavioral & Leadership interview question from OpenAI for Machine Learning Engineer roles. View the full question and solution on PracHub.

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Question

Behavioral Prompt: Delivering Under Severe Time Pressure

You are interviewing for a technical role where speed, rigor, and communication matter. Describe a specific time you had to deliver a technical solution under severe time pressure.

Address the following:

Approach and Structure
- How did you triage scope, set constraints, and plan the fastest viable path?
- How did you communicate trade-offs (e.g., accuracy vs. latency vs. risk) to stakeholders?
- What guardrails did you put in place to ensure correctness and safety while moving quickly?
Presentation (5–10 minutes)
- How did you craft a concise narrative? What did you prioritize in the story and why?
- What artifacts did you show (e.g., minimal architecture diagram, key metrics, demo) and what did you intentionally omit?
- How did you handle probing questions, uncertainty, and pushback during the presentation?
Reflection
- What would you change or improve with more time (technical debt, process, validation)?
- What did you learn about balancing speed and quality?

Describe handling pressure and present your work

Behavioral Prompt: Delivering Under Severe Time Pressure

Solution (Locked)

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