People Management

Can you discuss a particularly challenging situation you faced as a manager and how you navigated it?

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Answers

Anonymous

6 months ago
3.8Strong
I had 2 managers and a technical program manager reporting to me. The challenge I faced is unclear definitions of roles and responsibilities across these individuals and general blame game of the other party not doing their job. We were trying to arrive at our milestone plan and deliverables through the next year which was launch.
I talked to each of them individually and understood there was expectation mismatch on who is accountable and responsible and hence general frustration all around. I asked the TPM to come up with a RACI matrix which we will then review with the group and talk about mechanisms to ensure these are being followed. I did serveral revisions of this with the TPM and then brought the whole group together.

Anonymous

6 months ago
3.6Strong
Recently after RTO policy I had a lot good employee attrition in my org across multiple team. Also lost a manager in the process. Which had a cascading impact on the team workload as we had to still deliver on our committments and also team morale was low as the operation load like oncall, etc went up. I worked with the managers reporting to me to evaluate all the projects in flight and worked in leadership and PM to prioritize the projects based on customer/business needs and tradeoffs. Decided to push stall few projects and opportunistically improve operational load till we hire and rampup new team members. Also decided to do re-org within the team to co-locate manager with employees between multiple locations. Setup a recruiting drive along with the recruiting team to create interview PODs and weekly reviewing number of resumes/PS/Onsite we were having per week to accelerate the hiring.

Anonymous

10 months ago
3Strong
Discuss with the team about the situation and understand the needs and concerns of the team. Ensure that needs and concerns are not conflicted. Motivate the team with all possible ways.

Anonymous

10 months ago
1) if there are conflicting priorities , then identify the priorities which are approved and funded in the organization AOP .
2) the One that is approved takes highest precedence, if there are multiple priorities then the one which has significant legal impact takes precedence.
3) if there are no legal concerns then the one which has biggest customer impact or the one which will realize lot of revenue for the org will take priority.
  • Can you discuss a particularly challenging situation you faced as a manager and how you navigated it?
  • Can you describe a particularly challenging situation you have faced in your current or previous role, and how you approached it?
  • What steps did you take to address the situation, and what was the outcome?
  • How did you balance the needs and concerns of your team with the requirements of the situation at hand?
  • Can you discuss a time when you had to make a difficult decision as a manager and how you arrived at that decision?
  • How do you navigate conflicting priorities or demands from multiple stakeholders when faced with a difficult situation?
  • Can you share an example of a situation in which you had to effectively communicate and manage a sensitive issue?
  • How do you foster a positive, productive team environment even in the face of adversity or challenging circumstances?
  • Can you discuss a situation in which you had to manage change within your team, and how you approached it?

Interview question asked to Engineering Managers, ML Engineering Managers, Data Engineering Managers and other roles interviewing at Fidelity Investments, Raypd, Gemalto and others: Can you discuss a particularly challenging situation you faced as a manager and how you navigated it?.