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Successful Project, Teammate Conflict, a Changed View of a Teammate, and Values You Seek

GoogleSoftware Engineer · Technical Screen
MediumSoftware EngineerTechnical ScreenBehavioral & Leadership

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A behavioral round for a senior software engineer covering a successful project, a conflict with teammates, a time your negative view of a teammate turned positive, and the organizational values you want next. It tests ownership, conflict handling, self-awareness and genuine motivation.

This behavioral round for a senior software engineer asked four questions: two common ones (a successful project and a conflict with teammates) and two less common ones (a teammate you came to see differently, and the values you are looking for in your next organization). Answer each with a specific example from your own experience wherever one applies.

Clarifying Questions

  • Should each answer use a different project, or may one project serve more than one question?
  • Does the interviewer want to drill deeply into one or two stories, or hear all four at moderate depth?
  • For the teammate question, must it be a peer, or may it be someone more senior or more junior?

Part 1 — A successful project

Tell me about a project you consider successful.

What This Part Should Cover

  • Context and stakes, with a measurable definition of success
  • The candidate's own decisions and actions, as distinct from the team's
  • Scope that fits a senior engineer: technical depth, ambiguity, influence beyond the candidate's own code
  • The outcome with evidence, and what the candidate would do differently

Part 2 — Conflict with teammates

Tell me about a conflict you had with teammates.

What This Part Should Cover

  • A genuine conflict with real stakes, described fairly from both sides
  • How the candidate engaged: listening, evidence, and escalation only when needed
  • The resolution, and the state of the working relationship afterwards
  • What the candidate learned or changed

Part 3 — A teammate you came to see differently

Describe a time your perception of a teammate changed from negative to positive.

What This Part Should Cover

  • The initial impression, described through behavior and without disparaging the person
  • The specific event or information that changed it
  • The candidate's own role in the change rather than passive observation
  • What the candidate now does differently when forming impressions of colleagues

Part 4 — What you are looking for next

What organizational or company values are you looking for in your next role?

What This Part Should Cover

  • Two or three specific values, each grounded in past experience
  • How those values show up in day-to-day engineering work
  • Honest framing of what the candidate wants, without criticizing a current employer
  • A considered connection to how this company works, without flattery

Hints

Hint 1

Define success first: Say what success meant for this project and how it was measured, then make your own contribution clearly separable from the team's.

Hint 2

A real disagreement: Pick a disagreement about substance, such as a design, a priority or a quality bar, where you held a position and the other side also had a legitimate point.

Hint 3

What changed: them or you: Be explicit about what formed the negative impression, and whether the change came from new information, from their behavior, or from your own assumptions turning out wrong.

Hint 4

Show, don't list: Tie each value you name to something you have experienced, good or bad, so the interviewer can tell it is real and not a slogan.

Follow-up questions

  • In the successful project, what would have gone differently if you had not been involved?
  • In the conflict, what would you have done if the other person refused to move and your manager was unavailable?
  • Did you ever tell the teammate from Part 3 that your view of them had changed? Why or why not?
  • Which of the values you named has your current team lived up to least, and what have you done about it?