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The individual in question was hired for a new team I was setting up to build a product from scratch for an internal client. Since this was a new initiative, we needed to collaborate with multiple internal partners and conduct a series of brainstorming sessions. Unfortunately, this candidate frequently exhibited a fixed mindset during discussions, often leading to arguments that created discomfort among other team members.

I noticed this behavior during meetings, and several team members shared similar concerns in their one-on-ones, mentioning that their ideas and opinions were often dismissed or debated. This feedback highlighted a risk to team morale and the potential loss of valuable input from the group.

I addressed these concerns with the individual directly, emphasizing that teamwork and collaboration are essential to our success, and that respecting others’ input strengthens the final product. Although the individual initially seemed receptive, the behavior persisted. Consequently, I implemented formal coaching on teamwork and collaboration, and took a more active role in guiding discussions to create a comfortable environment for the team. The individual was placed on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) focused on teamwork in their focal review. Over subsequent quarterly reviews, I observed significant improvement in their approach to team discussions, with notable progress in collaborative behavior.

I led a project to implement a new feature in our loan processing system aimed at reducing API latency for faster loan approvals. Midway, I encountered data inconsistencies and latency issues caused by schema mismatches between the new API and our backend services. To resolve this, I optimized the data schema mapping, streamlined query performance, and introduced Redis caching for frequently accessed data, which significantly reduced the API call frequency and improved response times.

I also collaborated with QA to parallelize testing, allowing us to catch issues early. By continuously optimizing our microservices with adjustments to load balancing and asynchronous data processing, we increased processing speeds by 20%. While the deadline was slightly extended, our enhancements directly improved loan approval times and were a solid technical win for both the team and the user experience.

Yes — I believe simplifying complex topics is a critical part of my role as an engineering leader, especially when collaborating cross-functionally with product, design, sales, or customer success teams.

First, I focus on understanding the audience — what they need to know and why. For example, if we’re discussing system scalability with a product manager, I don’t dive into threads or queues — I might say:
"Think of the system like multiple checkout lanes at a grocery store — as traffic grows, we add more lanes to serve customers faster, while making sure we have enough cashiers and supplies."

Second, I use analogies, visual aids, and metrics to make the conversation tangible. For example, when explaining asynchronous processing via RabbitMQ, I might compare it to a "to-do list" where work is lined up and picked up by workers as they become available — this helps non-technical stakeholders grasp queuing and load balancing.

Third, I encourage open questions and feedback — I verify if I’m being clear, and adjust based on their reactions. My goal is to build alignment and shared understanding, not to impress with technical jargon.

I’ve found this approach helps the entire team make better, faster decisions while feeling confident about the technical direction.

At Auctane, I followed a structured process to ensure alignment - I would initial have date for date, and followed up with an email for alignment. I would also send a weekly status report for the leadership highlinting the project status and identifying any risks associated and how I am working on mitigating that risks.

 For eg. in one of our projects we had a external dependencies on UPS for a new API version - our PM was working with them and the delays on their end had impact for us - the project would have been delayed by a month.

I communicated with the leadership team on the risks and the plan i have to mititgate this risk. I had a join stakeholder meeting with the UPS team and my PM. We could identify parts of the API which we could work on while they are working on thier issues - by working out a parallel path - I could reduce the risk and deliver the project on time.

By being proactive and collobrating with the stakeholders I could deliver the project on time.

As an EM it is our responsibility to assist my team members so that they can grow. So I want to narate one scenario where I helped team member grow and it provided me an enormous learning. 

At hyperface when we were breaking monolith into micro service , there was a lot of work required at one of the component called integration service, this service was acting as a link between external bank system and hyperface Credit card as a service core engine . As work on this layer was more I moved one of the SDE-1 t that team , this team along with coding required lots of communication with business team as well , at that moment I found that the SDE-1 who was a good performer on core team started struggling in that team . I connected with him on 1:1 t ocheck is it because of he is not liking the work or is he having some personal issues as it was  hard to digest that person who is doing well in solving complex problem is struggling with not as challenging issue , at that moment I found that he is having issues in his communication , he feels underconfident interacting with other team , out of pressure commits what ever other team says. 

At that point fir I told him not to worry he is doing a good work and with him I created a framework to deal with this scenarios like always prepare before the meeting note done the important pointers , if you ae not sure d not commit always say I will get back after  discussing with team , for any communication rather then personal messages include relevant stakeholders as this will provide help . and also told him that improving communication is not an over night job. As a result of which withing one month following this practices his communication improved and it started reflecting in his work.

Learning : to help people grow always try to assign them the different type of tasks so that they will become aware where they are lacking and then help them grow

With a major product launch on the horizon, expecting to triple the user load. The infrastructure was non-optimized for demand and incident response was non-harmonious across teams with no set process.

As the SRE Manager, I'd have to implement project changes to infrastructure to accommodate high availability and scalability. I discovered a long-standing issue surrounding incident response and observability that would make it all the more difficult to achieve reliability under pressure and peak traffic.

Therefore, instead of fulfilling the project requirements as presented, I became an advocate for change across the organization. I established an observability platform with 100% stack coverage, created custom SLOs/SLIs/error budgets to enhance performance and reliability visibility, drafted and socialized an incident management playbook across the company and held hands-on trainings for all respective teams. In addition, I advocated for Terraform for Infrastructure as Code to help with deployment time and held FinOps reviews to help eliminate redundant costs in cloud spend.

As a result, we did not only survive the 3X traffic upon product launch with zero critical incidents, but we also achieved 15% saves the following years in cloud costs and 40% faster deployments. Many of the processes I created were adopted as company-wide best practices.

I tend to deal with persuasive conversation in a way that tends to benefit all parties involved. And one effective strategy I have found useful is to rather than straight up say no and get into a confrontation, I tend to understand where the party is coming from and what are the goals the party is trying to achieve and what can be done to get into a win-win situation for both parties. Especially in Amazon this comes into play almost every with the amount of dependencies each team has and so much away team work being done.
One example I can think about was my sister team who manager License Manager was working on a S Team level project where they unearthed a dependency on my team pretty late into the cycle and there was very little time the team could do to do an away team effort and came to me for the work to be done. I first understood the business impct of their project and ceded control in this situation by explaining that I have my core projects coming up but one invent and simplify thing we could is to push back the component’s work to later in the dev cycle and provide my support for their project which they can later come back and finish off for my project. In this bargain I was also able to convince my counterpart to provide me their Sr Engineer to do that work as we were taking a risk to my project by pushing that component out. The outcome of this arrangement was that we were able to deliver their project in time as well as get their best engineer to work on my project which led to a timely and high quality deliverable for my project as well.

Problem: company-wide focus shift came with the layoff. Instead of global expansion, the company steer towards operation efficiency. My team need to drop projects for expansion and aggressively prioritize cost reduction projects. Action: I was invited to a meeting with eng and product leaders to fully understand the reason and new goals for the shift; I also made sure I understood how the new priorities aligned with the company’s plan to success. Then for each sub-team owning a sub-area, I explained the company’s plan to success under the new macro economy, new strategy of operating with efficiency and impact on the team’s roadmap. I had 1-1s with eng to make sure they bought into the new vision and plan. Some eng had doubts in some of the new operational goals - for doubts on technical goals I had deep dive sessions with engineers to assure them that the goals are realistic and reasonable; for doubts on company’s mission I explained to them that the realignment is just a temporary set up and that focusing on operation efficiency in short term would better prepare us for the company’s vision in the long run. I also shared the new focus for other teams and how they fit into the company’s new plan to success along with our teams’. Results: the team was in general aligned on the new vision, some even said that it made more sense than the previous one; the team switched gear to execute the refined project roadmap within 2 weeks.

I practice open and honest communication in various settings. First of all, I spend half portion of my 1X1 in actively listening to my direct report's concern, feedback and opinions.  If I have any feedback, I provide that in a timely manner.  I discuss frequently team member's career growth plans with them and provide them project opportunities to grow. I also recognize team member's accomplishments both privately and publicly.

Additionally,  I conduct team meetings every week and ask my team to drive part of the agenda.  Whenever there is any update from the senior leadership that may impact my team, I update my team about it. Additionally, I ask if anyone is facing any roadblock and unblock them quickly.  I also set motivating goals and team charter for the team so it remain focused and engaged.