Grokking the Engineering Manager Interview
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Handling a Workplace Mistake
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When the company asks,

"Recall and describe an event when you made a mistake at work,"

They are looking to uncover several key insights about you:

  1. Accountability: Do you take responsibility for your mistakes, or do you try to shift the blame onto others?
  2. Learning Ability: Have you learned from your mistakes and taken steps to ensure they don’t happen again?
  3. Problem-Solving Skills: How do you handle situations when things go wrong?
  4. Honesty: Are you truthful about your past experiences, including the not-so-great moments?
Key traits and pitfalls to avoid
Key traits and pitfalls to avoid

Structuring Response Using the STAR Method

Question:

"Recall and describe an event when you made a mistake at work."

Answer:

Situation: "A couple of years ago, I was working on a project to update our company’s website. I was responsible for deploying new features and ensuring they worked seamlessly with the existing setup."

Task: "One day, I mistakenly deployed an update without thoroughly testing it in the staging environment. This update contained a bug that caused the website to crash."

Action: "As soon as I realized the mistake, I quickly took the website offline to prevent any further issues for our users. I notified my team and we worked together to identify the bug. I also communicated with our customer support team to inform them of the issue and provided them with a timeline for the fix. After identifying the bug, I fixed it and thoroughly tested the update before redeploying it. Additionally, I implemented a new protocol for future deployments, ensuring all updates would undergo rigorous testing in the staging environment first."

Result: "The website was back online within a couple of hours, and we received positive feedback from users for our prompt response. The new deployment protocol has since prevented similar issues. This experience taught me the importance of thorough testing and clear communication during a crisis."

Pitfalls To Avoid

  1. Blaming Others: Avoid shifting the blame to others or external circumstances. Take responsibility for your mistake and focus on how you addressed it.

  2. Lack of Details: Be specific about the situation, your actions, and the results. Vague answers don’t provide the interviewer with enough information about your problem-solving skills.

  3. Overemphasizing the Negative: Don’t dwell too much on the mistake itself. Instead, highlight what you learned and how you used that experience to improve.

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