Tell me about a time when you assisted a colleague in his work.What was the result?

I was part of a large program which did the gift registry modernization for a large retailer. I was leading the data modeling and migration, and a colleague was leading the front-end development. This was a large program involving a lot of vendors and status and progress were discussed daily in a meeting. I found my colleague struggling to provide an accurate progress report - specifically he could not come up with some of the estimates and dates for his items. I decided to help him out and started talking to him on his process. He mentioned that he was a first time project manager and was struggling to get data from another team to calculate his estimates. We brainstormed together on what the other teams' output and delivery dates can be and came up with few assumptions. My colleague was able to come up with some numbers and dates based on the assumption. I also coached him to present the numbers as an estimate like "As per out assumption, which is X, I have 80% level of confidence that Z API will take 100-125 hours to develop and will be completed by the weekending 15th February". This opened up conversations and provided more data. My colleague was able to give more accurate estimates and dates within the meeting itself.  

A colleague approached me seeking assistance with a complex coding challenge. They were struggling to optimize a particular algorithm for a project. I offered to review their code and provide insights into potential improvements. After analyzing the code together, we identified areas where they could refactor certain functions to make them more efficient. Additionally, I suggested alternative approaches that might yield better performance.

As a result of our collaboration, my colleague was able to implement the suggested changes and significantly improve the speed and efficiency of the algorithm. This not only helped them meet project deadlines but also enhanced the overall performance of the system, leading to positive feedback from stakeholders. Our collaboration strengthened our professional relationship and fostered a culture of knowledge sharing within the team.

Effective teamwork is about lifting others up, and I had an opportunity to do just that when I mentored a colleague struggling with data cleaning and Power BI.

At my previous role as a Senior Data Science Consultant, I worked on a data analytics project where a colleague from a different team was responsible for building Power BI dashboards. However, they struggled with data cleaning, preprocessing, and structuring the data efficiently for visualization. Their challenges were leading to inaccurate reports, slow performance, and stakeholder frustration due to delays.

The colleague was not familiar with best practices for data cleaning and was spending too much time manually fixing data inconsistencies instead of using efficient preprocessing techniques. Additionally, they were unfamiliar with Power BI’s advanced data modeling features, leading to incorrect aggregations and report inconsistencies.

To help them, I implemented a structured mentorship approach by using different learning and support strategies:

1. Hands-On Learning: Instead of overwhelming them with theory, I conducted live working sessions where we cleaned sample datasets together using Python (Pandas) and Power Query.

2. Breaking Down Data Cleaning: I introduced them to automated data preprocessing techniques (e.g., handling missing values, standardizing formats) to reduce manual work by 50%.

3. Building a Power BI Framework: I showed them how to structure their data models properly, use DAX functions for dynamic calculations, and create efficient relationships between tables.

4. Step-by-Step Documentation: I created a beginner-friendly guide outlining common data cleaning issues and solutions, along with Power BI best practices, so they could refer to it later.

5. Follow-Up & Continuous Learning: I scheduled weekly check-ins to review their progress, answer questions, and troubleshoot issues, ensuring they became independent and confident in their work.

This approach 

    Reduced their data cleaning time by 60%, making their workflow more efficient.
   Improved report accuracy, leading to faster and more reliable insights for stakeholders.
   Boosted their confidence in Power BI, enabling them to take ownership of dashboard development
    independently.
   Strengthened cross-team collaboration, fostering a supportive learning culture in the organization.

    This experience reinforced my belief that mentorship is about empowering others with the right tools and             

    mindset rather than just providing answers.

    I learned that tailoring training to an individual’s learning style—combining hands-on practice, 

    documentation, and continuous support—is the most effective.

As an engineering manager at the Flutter Team I had the opportunity to help colleagues and reports in their work. One example was helping a colleague to design and implement mac and ios code signing. Neither of us had experience with code signing but I volunteered to help him experiment and collect all the information required to implement automated and secure code signing. I helped with getting access to the Flutter’s Apple developer account, debugging signed binaries and libraries causing issues, etc.

The outcome of assisting this colleague was services and tooling to fully automate the code signing process during the release process. Personally it helped me understand the product workflows and create strong work relationships with colleagues.

At my last job a few of us created a group chat so if any of us had a question, they could ask it there. As a result we had the ability to build each other up and we were more comfortable asking/answering questions for each other which made our skills stronger and built stronger     friendships amongst ourselves.

I can tell you a story when I was a student because I was not working before helping my friend to produce her report with some observations and arrangement of tables and in her memoirs with some ideas to improve it for example location of photos, titles, and deletion of some details which are not interesting