Tell me about a time Flashcards
Where do you see yourself in X years?
Leading a team. Really enjoy coding so want to stay close to that but if a managerial job allows coding too, that’d be ideal.
A time where you made a mistake?
When I first moved to the microservice team, everything was new. Code, logic, organization of files, etc. The mistake was not asking enough questions about the flows and only focusing on getting my task done. Led to a much longer time to understand how things interacted and I was often lost or confused but didn’t want to seem unknowledgeable since everyone else seemed to understand it. Several years later, when I understood things more fully, we had some new team members ask questions about how the code worked and I was able to help them and saw them get up to speed much more quickly than I did. I realized that it was not only good but important to ask questions early on and once I was on the side of being able to answer those questions, I realized I didn’t have any judgment towards the new members so my leaders probably wouldn’t have those feelings towards me either. So I’m definitely more comfortable asking questions about things I don’t understand now.
What is one of your negatives?
Scope creep. While working, I tend to think about how this piece fits into the bigger picture and what else needs to be done for it to work properly. So it is sometimes difficult for me to only work on one part at a time. Pull requests used to be huge. This is made better when we have better task tracking so I can see the other part accounted for and then I can trust my other team members to do their parts.
Why hire you?
Software development is my passion. I started when I was 8 and fell in love with it in high school and still love it to this day. I have many years of experience and pride myself on quality work and can do a lot to help the team and the company not just maintain their milestones but reach to the next level.
A time where you disagreed with leaders?
Hundreds of custom queries needed to be made with data. Created a custom app for the team. Issue was product manager wanted to use spreadsheets for the data. Error prone, new to it, not the best way. Did it to get the program working. Eventually went back and redesigned to use json files and taught her how to set them up properly. Used the new methods and it worked better.
A time where you surpassed expectations?
With the two apps. Made a whole ui for it. Included loading bar. Moving from excel sheets to json.
What would your coworkers say about you?
Hard working, helpful, code is easy to read.
A time where you showed leadership?
Scheduling issue with ITSM. Made the schedule myself and but myself as the next person despite it not being my turn so people would be more willing to accept it. No more issues after that
Tell me about your situation
Started working for GM right out of college. Enjoyed it but work got repetitive and there wasn’t much room for career growth; In current role or to move up. I had also begun to get very involved with my new Church. Around this time they announced a generous severance program to reduce their work force. I took it and put all my focus on my role within the Church. While it was a different field, I’ve learned lots of valuable leadership skills and have really enjoyed it. I have worked on several personal programming projects in the last year since I do still love to write code but I am looking to do it professionally again so I am searching for a tech centered job.
What are you looking for in a new job?
Looking to broaden my professional experience. Only one tech job out of school so I want to see how other companies do work. More specifically, some where im able to be innovative and a more fast paced environment. The work at GM ebbed and flowed and I prefer to stay busy as I’m more productive that way. Most of my experience is with the backend so I’d prefer to stay there but I am open to exploring other areas as well. I also really enjoy database work so if I could work with them, that’d be a big plus for me
Describe a time you were part of organization or group and thought the strategy was lacking or inadequate
Story completion tracking. As part of our agile processes, we were keeping track of our average velocity and how many story points we were finishing each sprint. During a sprint, we would usually finish all the stories and pull ahead some from next sprint to work on or some would be added or taken away as priorities shifted. Our metrics didn’t take this into account so for a given sprint, it would report a lower completion rate or an unusually high carry over rate which reflected poorly on the team. So for one of the retros, I brought this up and it was discussed with the other teams in the ART and it turned out other teams had the same issue. So the calculations were adjusted to reflect these common cases and not only did the metrics improve, but they became more clear across the board.
Tell me about a time when you developed a viable strategy, but due to forces outside your control, the strategy could not be fully implemented
using excel sheets with my loader app. Made it work and then in a PI sprint, switched to json files and trained PO on how to use them
Think about a time you encountered a team member who was dragging down the effectiveness of the team
Alex with his medical issues. No fault of his own but work wasn’t getting done. We all pitched in to cover for him and that was how I gained my redis experience. Velocity eventually adjusted.
Having all your current knowledge, think about a past project and what you would do differently.
Ended off at page 6 of questions main from dad
