Types of Behavioral Interviews
Explore the two main types of behavioral interviews: collaboration and leadership. Understand how these interviews assess teamwork, communication, and leadership skills specifically for senior software engineering and management positions to help you prepare strategically and perform confidently.
We'll cover the following...
When interviewing for a senior or staff software engineering or engineering management role, you can expect to undergo a series of behavioral interviews.
These typically fall into two categories:
Collaboration and teamwork interviews
Leadership interviews
Collaboration and teamwork behavioral interviews
Collaboration behavioral interviews are a specific type of job interview designed to evaluate a candidate’s ability to work effectively in a team setting. These interviews are relevant to software engineers at all levels, including individual contributors and engineering managers.
During the interview, the interviewer will ask questions aimed at uncovering the candidate’s past collaborative experiences with team members and cross-functional partners. This may include questions related to how the candidate communicated, resolved conflicts, and contributed to achieving a common goal.
The purpose of collaboration behavioral interviews is to assess a candidate’s teamwork and communication skills, as well as their ability to adapt to different working styles and personalities.
Examples of questions:
What was the most difficult team project you ever worked on? Why was it so challenging? How did you and your team overcome those challenges?
How did you collaborate with a Product Manager or other cross-functional partners?
Tell me about a time when you had to work with a difficult teammate. How did you handle the situation, and what was the outcome?
Describe a time you had to make a change in your work style to finish a project.
Those questions asked during this interview can provide insights into the candidate's level of seniority. For example, more senior candidates may have experience collaborating with a wide range of cross-functional teams, including non-technical teams such as customer support and sales.
In future lessons, we'll cover collaboration questions and how to extract the maximum value from them.
Leadership interviews
Leadership interviews are all about seeing if you have the skills to lead a team. Interviewers want to know if you can create a technical strategy, manage projects, make tough calls, communicate well, and help your coworkers grow.
If you don't prepare well enough, you might end up getting hired for a lower position than you're capable of. That can affect your level/title, compensation, and career journey in a company.
Here is a diagram showcasing the various experience areas that an interviewer will concentrate on during leadership interviews:
The number of leadership interviews you'll have varies among companies and depends on the position you've applied for. Senior software engineers, for instance, may expect 1-2 leadership interviews that focus on the following topics:
Topic | Example |
Mentorship and coaching | Tell me about a time when you helped a teammate grow their skills and develop their career. What steps did you take to mentor and coach them? How did you measure their progress and provide feedback along the way? |
Project management | Can you describe a project that you managed from start to finish? What was your approach to managing the project, and how did you ensure that it was delivered on time and within budget? |
Process improvement | Tell me about a time you improved a process at one of your previous workplaces. |
Making decisions | Can you describe a situation where you had to make a difficult decision? What was the decision, and how did you go about making it? What factors did you consider, and how did you weigh them? How did you communicate your decision to others involved in the situation? What was the outcome of your decision? How did you evaluate its success? Can you tell me about a time when you had to make a trade-off between addressing technical debt vs. delivering a new feature? |
Influence and managing stakeholders | Tell me about a time when you had to manage a stakeholder who had conflicting priorities or goals. How did you handle the situation? |
Engineering managers, on the other hand, may undergo between 3 and 5 leadership interviews that cover all the topics above, plus the following topics:
Topic | Example |
People management, including managing low- and high-performers | Tell me about how you evaluate performance. Tell me about a low performer you managed. |
Hiring and building a team | Tell me about a time when you had to hire a candidate for a role on your team. How did you go about sourcing and screening candidates? How did you determine the best fit for the position and for your team culture? What steps did you take to ensure a smooth onboarding process for the new hire? |
Influencing technical strategy | Tell me about a time you influenced the technical direction of your team. |
Building an organization (for managers of managers) | Tell me about a time when you were responsible for building a new team or department. What steps did you take to ensure the team was successful in achieving its goals? What were some of the biggest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them? |
To excel in leadership interviews, candidates need to prepare adequately and develop a framework for answering leadership questions. This course covers all the leadership question categories and provides a comprehensive framework for answering leadership questions. By leveraging the knowledge gained from this course, you can increase your chances of success in leadership interviews and elevate your career to new heights!