Grokking the Engineering Manager Interview
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Dealing with Project Failure
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When an interviewer asks,

"Tell me about a time when the project you worked on failed,"

They aren’t just trying to bring up painful memories.

They want to understand several important aspects of your professional behavior:

  1. Accountability: How do you take responsibility for your part in the project’s outcome?
  2. Problem-Solving: How do you handle setbacks and what steps do you take to address issues?
  3. Learning from Mistakes: Can you identify what went wrong and how you can prevent similar failures in the future?
  4. Resilience: How do you bounce back from failure and maintain a positive attitude?
Key traits and pitfalls to avoid
Key traits and pitfalls to avoid

Structuring Response Using the STAR Method

Question:

"Tell me about a time when the project you worked on failed."

Answer:

Situation: "A couple of years ago, I was leading a project to develop a new feature for our main software product. The goal was to launch this feature in time for a major industry event."

Task: "As the project manager, my task was to oversee the development, ensure the team met the deadlines, and deliver a high-quality product."

Action: "Halfway through the project, we encountered significant technical issues that we hadn’t anticipated. Despite working overtime and bringing in additional resources, we couldn’t resolve the problems in time for the event. I had to inform our stakeholders that we wouldn’t be able to deliver the feature as promised. After the event, I organized a thorough review to understand what went wrong. We found that the issues arose from not allocating enough time for testing and underestimating the complexity of integrating the new feature with existing systems. I implemented new protocols for future projects, including more rigorous testing phases and better risk assessment at the planning stage."

Result: "While the project did fail to meet its original deadline, the lessons learned were invaluable. The new protocols we put in place helped us successfully launch subsequent features without similar issues. This experience taught me the importance of thorough planning and risk management."

Pitfalls To Avoid

  1. Blaming Others: Avoid placing the blame solely on your team or external factors. Show that you understand your role and responsibility in the failure.

  2. Negativity: Don’t dwell too much on the negative aspects of the failure. Focus on what you learned and how you improved processes or skills as a result.

  3. Ignoring the Follow-Up: Make sure to highlight what you did after the failure to ensure it didn’t happen again. This shows your ability to learn and adapt.

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