Tell me about a time when you made an unpopular decision

At Acutance, when I joined the team, I noticed that our legacy code was lacking unit tests, which was a significant gap in our development process. Recognizing the importance of maintaining high-quality code, I decided to set a goal for our team to incorporate unit tests into all our microservice projects.

This decision was initially met with resistance, particularly from long-standing team members who were accustomed to the existing workflow and didn't see the value in implementing unit tests. Despite this pushback, I was convinced that introducing unit tests was essential for improving our code quality and reducing future maintenance issues.

To address the resistance, I took a strategic approach. I identified the newer developers on the team, who were more open to adopting new practices. I tasked them with implementing unit tests as part of their development work. Over the course of one to two sprints, we gathered empirical data showing the benefits of this approach, including increased code reliability and easier debugging processes.

The turning point came when the results became evident to the entire team. The initial skeptics saw firsthand how unit tests helped catch errors early and made the codebase more robust. This empirical evidence convinced even the most resistant team members to embrace the new approach.

The lesson I learned from this experience is that sometimes, leading by example and demonstrating tangible benefits can be more effective than theoretical arguments. Showing concrete results helped build consensus and drive the team toward a higher standard of code quality.

Was working as a Product Manager at Uber. We were working on the driver app and trying to make it easy to see total payouts post-Uber's commission. We had received bad coverage in the news recently, regarding our cut and it was urgent to roll out transparency as quickly as possible. Last-minute, we realized that our changes, while delivered the intended impact, also violated several SLAs in terms of app loading time when someone visited this section. This was so bad that for 0.5% of all drivers, it could also crash the app. It was also a risky call since any fix would require users to update their app, something we can't really guarantee. So some users might stay exposed to bad app performance even beyond our usual 2 week rollout period. 

I made the decision to go ahead with the rollout knowingly, inspite of being aware of the loading issue. The engineers and EM in my team were quite unhappy with my call since they disagreed with the compromise and also felt it would reflect poorly in their craft assessments. My decision was driven by the urgency of resolving our burgeoning PR issues though. So while I pushed through my POV, I also understood where the engineers were coming from.

I also tried to mitigate the negative effects of my decision, both by trying to provide them shielding and accepting ownership of the decision and its consequences. I also went out of my way to ensure senior stakeholders were aware of the consequences and had a chance to "veto" my decision before we went ahead.

One such instance occurred during a navigation redesign where there was a strong divergence of opinions regarding the design direction for the browse navigation item.

Despite differing decisions, I ultimately made the decision to prioritize simplicity and user needs over the opinion of a stakeholder, backed by user research and usability testing. I presented compelling evidence as to why I was making this decision, and I was open and honest about the user feedback we had received. I helped stakeholders understand the rationale behind my decision and the impact it had on users. After implementing the decision, I monitored the user feedback to keep an open mind towards iterating our solution and made sure users were satisfied with the experience.

As a program manager, I faced a divisive choice between prioritizing new features or fixing existing bugs. Despite resistance, I prioritized bug fixes after thorough data analysis and risk assessment. Transparent communication with the team emphasized the long-term benefits of improving product stability and customer satisfaction. Monitoring metrics validated the decision's positive impact over time. Ultimately, the unpopular decision strengthened our product's foundation and enhanced user trust.