TechnicalXFN Leadership

Can you walk me through how you explain complex engineering concepts to non-technical team members in a clear and concise manner?

Engineering Manager

Digit

CrowdStrike

Applied Materials

CarMax

Mastercard

REI

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Answers

Anonymous

4Strong
I had to explain Device Configurations feature to Product Managers and Engineering managers of Windows update team for Azure Device Update for IotHub project as a EM for Device Management team. The audience was not non-technical but were new to the IoT technology. I focused on the What and Why first. Presented real world use-cases for the Device Configuration subsystem of IotHub using customer examples. I also demoed the hackathon project that I had worked on which used device configuration to update firmware on a device. I used the demo as a segway into introduction of APIs for the feature and how those APIs power the Azure Portal UX for Edge deployments. At the end I presented the caveats and limitations of the feature so the Windows Update team is aware of the gaps.

Anonymous

3.6Strong
First understand the audience and work backwards from the impact that the concept or idea would have on the customer or the audience. Then explain the concept at a high level first and follow up with an example. if its a complicated concept then break it down into logical pieces each with an example or analogy. Follow up with how it all fits together to form the big picture and deliver impact.

Anonymous

3.6Strong
As an EM its part of our daya to day job to wear multiple hats and to know multiple language of communication to interact with stake holder. Let me explain with the help of an example regarding a situation where I need to explain complex tech problem to a non-tech person .
Situation : At hyperface an on call issue occured that our reward engine availability started decreasing as a result of which it was not able to process real-time reward and customer were getting affected.
Task : 
1. we nee to identify the root cause. 
2. buisness team got involved as this customers were calling them and asking for RCA . So to understand the problem better they wanted us to present the RC so that the can present the same to bank business team.
3. We identifed the problem that because for some transaction date was coming in wrong format as agreed by the bank and we were converting it to epoch time and as this was null and on converting epoch time to null it was trying to fetch all the transactions from 1970 and was killing the DB. 
Action : 
1. As step one we fixed in our code and brought everything to normal .
2. now to explain it business team we created a RCA doc followed recursing Why Approach . 
   a. Why this problem occured ? 
        This problem occuued as our reward processing engine ws going down. 
  b. Why reward engine was going down ? 
        As our Database load has increased because of which services were not able to communicated with DB and were dying.
   c. Why DB load as increased.
        DB Load increased because the data coming in transaction was of wrong format which resulted in wrong to and from date and was trying to large amount of transaction.
   d. Why date wrong format was not handled ? 
       Wrong date format was not handled because it was agreed upon with the bank business that date format will never change , and due to fast pace developemt we also did not put any specific check.
  e. Why other type of rewards were affected ? 
     as we are in monolith architecture and use same database and load on database was high so all the rewards were failing.

Steps to make sure it will not happen in future: 
Immediate Action item:
1. Handle validation for all fields and if validation failes then move that record to DLQ and raise alert.
2. PUT a check for range queuries if it is more then 1 year for a user then fail and move it ot DLQ.

Long term fix : 
1.  Move it to push based architecture rahther then pull based.

Result:
1. Business team understood the prblem and that gave them confidence and they further communicated to external team that this was a problem form banks end and that will not happen .
2. They followed with bank team and got the format corrected.

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  • Can you give me an example of how you communicate complex engineering ideas to non-technical colleagues effectively?
  • How do you translate complex engineering concepts for non-technical team members in a simple and straightforward manner?
  • Can you walk me through your process for simplifying complex engineering concepts for non-technical team members?
  • Can you describe how you convey complex engineering ideas to non-technical team members in a clear and concise way?
  • Can you explain your approach to communicating complex engineering concepts to non-technical team members effectively?
  • How do you make complex engineering ideas understandable to non-technical team members?
  • Can you outline your method for communicating complex engineering concepts in a way that's easy for non-technical team members to understand?
  • Can you share a time when you had to explain a complex engineering concept to a non-technical team member and how you did it?
  • How do you ensure that non-technical team members understand complex engineering concepts that you explain to them?
  • Can you give me an idea of how you simplify complex engineering concepts for non-technical team members?
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Interview question asked to Engineering Managers interviewing at E*TRADE, Zuora, Patch and others: Can you walk me through how you explain complex engineering concepts to non-technical team members in a clear and concise manner?.