A practice prompt we wrote. No company or candidate report names it, so it carries no company tag.
How to answer
Two phrases set the bar: “technical decision” rules out a clash of personalities, and “what happened” asks for the outcome, including the case where you were wrong. Underneath, the question asks whether you can disagree with the person you report to without damaging the team or the customer.
Five moves, in order:
- The decision, and why it was reasonable. What your manager chose, and the constraint they were weighing that you weren’t: a deadline, a staffing plan, a promise to the customer. If you can’t state their reasoning fairly, the interviewer will assume you never understood it.
- Your concern, as a risk with evidence. Not “I preferred another approach” but what you expected to break, and what you checked to know it: a load test, a sample of real data, an afternoon prototype.
- The forum. Privately first, in a one-on-one or a short written note, never in front of the customer. Bring a cheap way to find out who was right, not just an objection.
- The outcome. Either your manager changed course, or they didn’t and you committed. If you committed, say what that looked like in your work that week.
- What happened. The result, and whether you were right. If you weren’t, say so; that story is often the stronger one.
Say how you opened: “I think we’re taking on a risk with the batch design, and I’d like an hour on Thursday to show you the test I ran.” It shows you brought evidence and a proposal, and asked for the room instead of taking it.
The traps are the story where your manager is the fool, and the one where you won by going over their head.
Follow-ups
What the interviewer may ask next, once your first answer is on the table.
- What did your manager know that you didn’t?
- What would you have done if the test had come out the other way?
- Did you raise it with anyone else on the team before you took it to your manager, and why or why not?
Where answers go wrong
- Tells a story in which the speaker was right and the manager was foolish, which casts the interviewer, who may be your next manager, as the next fool.
- Goes around the manager, to their boss or in front of the customer, and presents it as courage.
- Picks a disagreement about taste, such as a library or a naming convention, so nothing was at stake and no evidence was needed.
Answer this in two minutes
Write the answer you would say out loud. The clock starts with your first word.
Illustrative answer about a fictional project
I was on a team building a claims-document pipeline for a workers’ compensation insurer. My manager decided we’d process documents in a nightly batch rather than as they arrived.