Demonstrate leadership and ensure data compliance

Q: Demonstrate leadership and ensure data compliance

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

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Question

Behavioral & Leadership: Leading Through Reorg While Shipping ML + Ensuring Data Compliance

Context

You are the ML lead during a reorganization that reshapes team structure and dependencies. You must continue delivering on an existing ML roadmap while ensuring end-to-end data compliance for user-data-driven ML systems at scale.

Part A — Reorg and Roadmap Execution

Tell a STAR-style story (Situation, Task, Actions, Results) about a time you led a team through a reorganization while still shipping on an ML roadmap. Specifically cover:

Realigning scope
Resetting timelines and risk management
Stakeholder management (PM, Eng, Legal/Privacy, Infra, adjacent product teams)
Maintaining team morale and psychological safety
Key tradeoffs you made (with rationale)
Metrics you used to judge success (product impact, delivery reliability, cost, quality, team health)

Provide specific incidents, decisions, and measurable outcomes.

Part B — Data Compliance for ML Using User Data

Walk through how you ensure compliance in ML pipelines that use user data. Address each of the following:

Identifying and minimizing PII
Consent and purpose limitation
Regionalization and data residency (e.g., GDPR/CCPA/CPRA)
Retention and deletion policies
DSAR workflows (access/erasure/portability)
Audit logging and access controls
DLP/redaction
Sandboxing for experimentation
Vendor/data-sharing reviews
Data lineage and documentation
Preventing sensitive data leakage in training and evaluation