Behavioral: Managing Ambiguity and Changing Requirements

Context

For a Machine Learning Engineer technical screen, be ready to discuss a real project where requirements were unclear or kept evolving. Your answer should demonstrate how you bring structure, align stakeholders, reduce risk, and deliver outcomes.

Prompt

Describe a time when work requirements were ambiguous or kept changing. In your answer, cover:

1. How you clarified goals and success metrics (both business and ML/engineering), including constraints.
2. How you identified and aligned stakeholders (owners, approvers, contributors) and their roles.
3. How you reduced uncertainty (e.g., experiments, spikes, prototypes, shadow launches).
4. How you decided what to do first (prioritization framework and rationale).
5. The key trade-offs you made and how you communicated them.
6. The outcome, with measurable results.
7. What you would do differently next time (retrospective/learning).