Software Engineer Behavioral Interview Questions
A list of questions to prepare for a behavioral interview:
- What were some of the best things you’ve built?
- What are you proud of?
- Tell me about a project that failed and what you learned from the experience.
- What were some excellent collaborations you’ve had?
- Tell me about a time when you advocated for and pushed your own ideas forward despite opposition?
- How do you deal with conflict?
- How do you like to give and receive feedback?
- What is the best advice you have received from a peer or mentor?
- Why <company_name>?
- How did you get into backend/frontend/devops?
- What do you do right now?
- How many people use it (Product in your company)?
- Tell me about a difficult problem you solved in the last six months.
- How do you justify working on this kind of stuff? How do you sell your manager on this work?
- How do you measure that this was achieved (Product in your company)?
- How many people were involved? What was your role in all of this?
- What motivated you to leave your previous company and join your current company?
- What do you find enjoyable about working at your current company? What do you find frustrating?
- Who was the most difficult person you have had to work with?
- How did you bring up the code quality issues to this person?
- In your ideal role, what would you want to do?
- Did you have an opportunity to do this at your current job?
- How would a career at Facebook help you grow as an engineer?
- Tell me about a time when somebody changed your mind.
A bit more
- Can you give an example of a valuable piece of feedback that you have received?
- When did you receive constructive/negative/difficult feedback? How did you act upon this?
Teamwork/ Empathy
- How would your co-workers describe you? Who is your favorite co-worker?
- What would you do if you see a lower-performing engineer in your team?
- Tell me a time when you went out of your way to help someone.
Conflict/Disagreement
- Describe a time where you had a disagreement or conflict within your manager or colleague.
- Can you describe a situation where you had to work with a decision that you didn’t agree with?
Mistakes/Failures
- Describe a technical mistake you have made recently? What did you learn?
- What’s the most difficult/challenging problem you have had to solve?
- What is your biggest failure? What did you learn from this?
Self Starter/Proactive
- If things aren’t going to plan, how do you move yourself/your projects forward?
- When you did you set a goal? how did you achieve it? can you describe a time you didn’t achieve it?
- How do you seek out opportunities? (we really like candidates who are proactive in fixing/improving things)
- How do you communicate, both within your team and with other teams?
- How do you work in an environment if you had no manager or guidance? Describe how you would get your project/task done?
General
- What motivates you?
- Where do you see yourself in 2-3 years? (career growth)