Which of your past challenges is your most memorable?

Question

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Most memorable challenges was to get 70% of my team eligible fir Chairman while
ending the year achieving top quartile results. My team accepted the challenge,
focused on improving customer . satisfaction results and achieved with goals.
 The challenge helped my team recognize their true potential which helped them
consistently achieve top quartile results results.

Anonymous · Answer

Situation:
In my role as a Product Analytics Team Lead at Zalando Lounge, I noticed that
many Product Managers were either hesitant or inconsistent in applying
experimentation principles when making product decisions — leading to missed
opportunities or unclear results.
Task:
I wanted to improve experimentation maturity across the product organization,
while also deepening my own knowledge and refreshing areas where I felt rusty.
My goal was to create a scalable, engaging learning experience tailored to our
product teams as Expeimentation Upskilling.
Action:
 * I initiated and led the creation of a 3-part Experimentation Upskilling
   Series designed specifically for PMs.
 * To make it relevant and robust, I partnered with the central Experimentation
   team to co-develop content, align on best practices, and ensure consistency
   across Zalando.
 * I designed the curriculum to progress from foundations to advanced topics —
   including hypothesis setting, test design, interpreting statistical
   significance, and business impact translation.
 * While building the course, I also took the opportunity to refresh and deepen
   my own understanding, ensuring I could explain concepts in a product-relevant
   way.
 * The sessions were interactive, with real product examples from Lounge, Q&A
   blocks, and follow-up materials.

Result:
The program received excellent feedback — several PMs mentioned they felt more
confident initiating and interpreting A/B tests. As a result, we saw a
noticeable improvement in experiment documentation quality and clarity in
post-test decision-making. For me personally, it was a growth moment in both
content mastery and cross-functional enablement, and I now actively look for
more ways to embed analytics education into product workflows.  Also the
materials were added as an milestone for all Product Managers Onboarding
Material.

Anonymous · Answer

In one of my previous projects, I completed the proof of concept (POC) for our
new bulk job framework using a low-traffic job. After confirming its
effectiveness, I migrated a high-volume job to the framework. Additionally, I
implemented a separate maintenance job responsible for deleting bulk job data
one day after completion. This maintenance job deletes data from two tables in a
single query. However, as the data grew, the execution time of the delete query
increased. Since the maintenance job runs every hour, the team responsible for
the migrated high-volume job began noticing deadlock issues, particularly at the
start of the hour, ultimately having to disable the feature for new jobs.

To address this, I started investigating the issue and noticed a pattern: the
deadlocks occurred every hour at the 0th minute. I utilized the SHOW ENGINE
INNODB STATUS command to gather more information and simulated the scenario at
the exact 0th minute of the hour, successfully replicating the issue in our
staging environment. This process enabled me to identify the cause of the
deadlock.

I discovered that the delete query in the maintenance job and the insert query
for job data in MySQL were causing the deadlock. The delete query acquired a gap
lock to fetch a large amount of data, while the insert query attempted to insert
a row within the same gap lock, leading to the deadlock. This unexpected
challenge was blocking our entire project and was particularly significant for
me, as I had never encountered deadlocks before, presenting a valuable learning
opportunity.

To resolve the problem, I modified the queries to simplify them, effectively
shifting more work to the job itself. This change successfully eliminated the
deadlock issues. This challenge was particularly memorable for me because it not
only enhanced my problem-solving skills but also deepened my understanding of
database management.

Anonymous · Answer

I was running co-design workshops with young people with cancer and they all
designed their own VR apps. I had a time limit on my PhD so didn't have time to
develop all their designs but they were really tied to these ideas. So I
 started to contact companies that had commercial VR apps available that had
similarities with the co-designers designs. In exchange I offered them an
opportunity to test the suitability of their app in the medical space. A company
in the states got back to me and said they were happy to amend their current app
to include features designed by the young people with cancer. They sent me a
copy of the app for free and the young people with cancer were able to evaluate
an app that they had designed. I also managed to produce 2 fully working
prototypes of the other 2 ideas they had ensuring that all participants felt
included and heard in the process

Anonymous · Answer

In one of my previous projects, we were tasked with designing and deploying a
completely new state-of-the-art network, including a new VoIP system. However,
we unexpectedly faced resistance from the customer, who preferred a traditional
TDM-based PBX system instead of VoIP system. In this case, deploying the old PBX
system would be a step back from a technological point of view. On the other
hand, it was quite challenging to convince the customer of the advantages of
VoIP technologies. To address this, I created a comprehensive presentation for
all stakeholders, outlining in detail the benefits of VoIP, including reduced
operational costs. Ultimately, we successfully implemented the newest VoIP
system to the customer's satisfaction.

Anonymous · Answer

It would be at my thesis, of predicting SEPSIS with AI using multiple models,
and the challenge was with time management, since we had 2 problems, the first
problem was that we didn't had access to the data base until half of the second
semester, since the process to get access to a hospital database was a rigorous
process, so we weren't able to go quick with our application. The second one was
that a team mate and I had a family member with cancer, so we needed to manage
our work load in a manner that we could be present as family and team members,
we needed to fulfil our duties on the project, so I planted a prioritization
process in witch we focused on our best attributes I on sql queries and
documentation, mostly but the situation with the family member of my companion
worsen, so needed someone to help with his work load, so I also assisted him
with his main tasks as the main designer of the project, mainly on the uml
diagrams, so that we could end our thesis

Anonymous · Answer

Brazil Carrefour- the volume of sales was low. The sales was going via app, and
people had to have points to redeem.

What we saw there was accumulated points that were very high, but redemptions
rates were low. I looked at data more deeply, and did my checks on different
point levels. Checked previous campaigns to see behaviours of customers. Such as
who is our best buyer, who is the most loyal and how many points do they have.
So I realized our best buyers, are the people actually have 1, 2 and 3 points.
Then I proposed to have a less costly items to be known our next campaign, and
negotiated the price discount with business planners. Indeed we saw a very high
increase on volume of sales. From 200k on glasses category, we went to 780k
knives. As the projects has the fixed cost, that additional sales meant profit
for BL. This analysis then was the basis how I looked at the projects when it
was sent for approval.

Anonymous · Answer

Within one week of joining my current oraganisation I was assigned to a
development which I didn't have much background off as my senior developer got
sick and had to go take leave for a month but the project had to be handed over
within that time.This was really challenging for me as I was not only new to the
project but also to the oraganisation and didn't have much help to ask for . But
with the the available documents and the KT recordings although this was
difficult but i could finally submit the project on time . Although this was
really challenging for me but this helped me to gain confidence in myself and
also earned me the confidence of others in this new organisation

Anonymous · Answer

One significant challenge I faced was when tasked with streamlining the
onboarding process for sellers on our platform. The problem statement was vague,
and the onboarding journey was unclear, complicating the creation of a research
plan. I conducted multiple rounds of interviews to understand the technical
process and team roles, despite initial discrepancies and lack of clarity.
Recruiting participants was difficult without product support, but I persisted
using trial-and-error methods. Bridging gaps between business, product, and user
needs was challenging, especially when a strategic pivot changed the business
model mid-project. Despite time and resource constraints, I emphasized
user-centric insights, documented assumptions, and ensured they were validated
in future iterations. This approach ultimately led to a more efficient
onboarding process, demonstrating the importance of clear problem statements and
cross-team clarity.

Anonymous · Answer

One significant challenge I faced was when tasked with streamlining the
onboarding process for sellers on our platform. The problem statement was vague,
and the onboarding journey was unclear, complicating the creation of a research
plan. I conducted multiple rounds of interviews to understand the technical
process and team roles, despite initial discrepancies and lack of clarity.
Recruiting participants was difficult without product support, but I persisted
using trial-and-error methods. Bridging gaps between business, product, and user
needs was challenging, especially when a strategic pivot changed the business
model mid-project. Despite time and resource constraints, I emphasized
user-centric insights, documented assumptions, and ensured they were validated
in future iterations. This approach ultimately led to a more efficient
onboarding process, demonstrating the importance of clear problem statements and
cross-team clarity.

Which of your past challenges is your most memorable?

Practice this question with AI

Go Premium

Practice More Questions

Community Answers

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Unlock Community Insights

Everything You Need to Ace DS Interviews