Common STAR-Format Questions (Situation, Action, Task, Result)

When did you fail at something and how did you learn from that?

• Situation + Task: At my internship last summer, I pushed my code into the production pipeline during a big launch and caused a blockage.
• Action: After hours, I worked with my mentor to solve the issue so that the rest of the changes necessary for launch could be made.
• Result: This helped me understand more about managing competing priorities, given that my code was less critical.

When did you disagree with your manager?

• Situation + Task: At my previous job, I disagreed with the senior developer I was working with on a system design issue. I didn’t want to confront him or disagree with him because the company didn’t have a culture of transparency (was actually very much the opposite in that the CEO made every decision himself).
• Action: I came up with a lot of evidence and reasoning for my plan, which he eventually agreed with.
• Result: We built the system in a much more failure-tolerant way, which helped uptime significantly

What helpful feedback have you received and how did you apply it?

• Situation + Task: My manager at a previous job said to slow down and plan out big projects before jumping into them. I have too much enthusiasm/immediate ideas and sometimes don’t plan things out well enough before starting.
• Action: After that, I took lots of time to plan my next project, which helped a ton.
• Result: I still made some mistakes but not as many because my plan was solid.

When did you give someone feedback?

• Situation + Task: I worked as a Teaching Assistant, which involved helping students correct their mistakes on projects or think about tough problems.
• Action: I balanced helping them succeed with ensuring that they learned (I didn’t just give them the answer).
• Result: The students became more capable throughout the semester and some even became independent enough that they didn’t need to come to TA hours anymore!

What is something challenging that you have worked on (technical or non-technical) and what was the impact or outcome of it? What did you learn from this experience?

• Situation + Task: Building sign-in functionality for a website I built.
• Action: I had to understand how much I didn’t know and stop coding for a while so I could understand concepts that were previously foreign to me.
• Result: I was able to succeed only because I was so willing to learn and take my time. I learned to embrace challenging problems and stay level-headed despite frustrating roadblocks.

When have you had multiple competing priorities and how did you handle that?

• Situation + Task: As I was finishing my previous internship, I had to decide whether to continue working on my project or start the presentation/handoff work. I learned from my manager that the most important thing is the project’s impact, and adding a few more small features wouldn’t increase value very much. However, detailing what I did and how it can be used in the future has a much larger impact.
• Action: I stopped working on my project and began contributing more value to the team by writing handoff notes and making a detailed and clear presentation about my work.
• Result: My team gave me very positive feedback and appreciated the value I contributed. My manager said he’d love to hire me back if his organization is allowed to hire more people next year.

How have you dealt with a conflict scenario?

• Situation + Task: I worked with a procrastinating/inexperienced team for a class project (I had to do most of the work myself, even though the project was meant for three people).
• Action: I took charge and assigned tasks, but I didn’t feel comfortable acting as the boss. I spoke with my professor and he agreed that I should join a new team for the rest of the class.
• Result: I made it through the project with that bad group and was able to find a more collaborative group for the future projects. I avoided submitting a terrible project and also avoided angering my teammates by telling them to work harder.

When have you helped mentor a new joiner?

• Situation + Task: When I began to get interested in coding, I relied on mentors to help me build skills and determine what I should spend time on.
• Action: I developed an appreciation for mentorship and wanted to give back, so I helped less experienced programmers build their skills and understand the industry better. I did this by joining a club at my college that helps high school students enter the tech world with projects, internships, courses, and more.
• Result: These experiences have taught me leadership skills, responsibility, and patience. They’ve also allowed me to give back to others.

When have you taken ownership of something?

• Situation + Task: I participated in a 24-hour Hackathon and found that my team didn’t really have an interest in putting their full effort into the project.
• Action: I took on a leadership role and did my best to help involve everyone and utilize people’s unique skills.
• Result: We didn’t win the Hackathon, but I’m proud of my effort and ownership during a tough situation.

When have you had to think on your feet?

• Situation + Task: An exam for one of my classes asked how I would design Twitter.
• Action: A lot to consider, but here were some of my ideas:
  • Map tweets to servers by hashtag or topic
  • Create a homogeneous architecture to avoid a single point of failure
  • Redirect clients to the server that stores a certain tweet
  • Store metadata (followers, upvotes, etc.) on a different set of homogenous servers (use hashing and geographic location to determine where a user’s info is stored)
• Result: While I definitely didn’t answer the question perfectly, I was able to use concepts we had learned in the class to make educated guesses about how to design a really complicated system. I got a good grade on the exam because I had absorbed a lot during lectures, studied hard, and was able to answer even the really tough questions.

What is a specific thing you did that positively impacted a project you worked on?

• Situation + Task: I was working on an independent project that involved a database.
• Action: I created a new set of SQL tables to reduce the number of calculations involved in loading the data and help decrease loading times.
• Result: This decision made the front-end website far more usable and fast, which supported one of the project’s main goals: effortless and seamless use of the site.

How would you use technology to solve a real-world problem?

• Situation + Task: I’ve always thought that all of the food thrown out by restaurants and grocery stores is wasteful and instead could be used to help fight hunger.
• Action: I’d suggest an app that allows restaurants and grocery stores to post when they have leftover food. Then, people in need or food banks could come pick it up.
• Result: Hopefully this type of app would help solve two problems at once: food waste and food insecurity. Food is the only situation (I can think of, at least) where we have all of the resources necessary, but they just aren’t allocated properly. So a re-allocation system like this one might be very helpful.

Common Non-STAR Questions

How do you stand out from the crowd?

• My combination of technical skills and communication/soft skills is unique.

Why did you choose your college?

• Small school (community, leadership, small class sizes and relationships with professors)
• Campus (not city → leads to better community)
• Academics focused on common good
• Friendly campus atmosphere

What motivates you?

• The common good (doing work that benefits others)
• Passion for the work (when I’m working on important features that will be used)
• Seeing the product/result of my code

Why are you interested in technology?

• Problem solving and logic
• Creativity and endless possibilities
• Building on others’ work to create even cooler projects

What are you looking for in a job?

• Learning opportunities to help me become a better engineer
• Community, comfortable, and caring environment

Can you tell me something about you that isn’t on your resume?

Examples:

• I lived in Spain until I was 13 and …
• I have 7 siblings and I’m very close with all of them…
• I was a nationally-ranked basketball player until I…

Why would you be a good fit for this company?

(Example for Amazon)

• I strongly identify with Amazon’s values of leadership, personal responsibility, and dedication
• I have looked at Amazon’s Leadership Principles and feel that I am especially strong in Ownership and Bias for Action
• I think I’m a very adaptable learner and would quickly be able to employ the LPs which I don’t have experience with yet, such as Frugality and Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer

What do you think are some of the key success indicators for someone working in the Software Engineer role?

• Functional, readable, well-documented code
• Being known as helpful and generous with time for others

Who is someone you’ve worked with who had a great impact on you?

• A SWE on my team last summer was an extremely smart engineer who everyone turned to for advice
• She was very good at prioritizing tasks, explaining how to solve problems, and giving advice

What are some of your hobbies?

• Skiing
• Traveling
• Trying new ice cream stores
• Volunteering at my local animal shelter

What challenge does our company face and what would you do to fix it?

• Your company faces the challenge that people’s expectations of your products are always advancing
• Improve reliability and security to meet high demands
• Educate customers on the impact of these improvements

If you could take additional training in any job-related area, which would you choose?

• Course specifically discussing how SWEs can use AI to increase productivity
• Learning from experts would be more beneficial than trial and error

What community do you care about? If you had a chance to contribute, how would you do it?

• My school community: Built a website to help people find the right courses to take
• Computer Science education community: Worked as a Teaching Assistant helping students learn to code

How do you earn the trust of a team?

• Keep relationships casual and friendly; disagreements shouldn’t be personal
• Trust is built over time by demonstrating skills and reliability
• Listen and engage with other perspectives of the group

What is your biggest accomplishment to date?

• First person in my family to attend college
• Effort and dedication throughout high school paid off