tech-interview-handbook/contents/behavioral-questions.md

---
id: behavioral-questions
title: Common Questions
---

Here's a list of common behavioral questions to prepare for. If you prepare well for the general questions and apply the STAR format along with demonstrating qualities, you will be fine.

## General

- Why do you want to work for X company?
- Why do you want to leave your current/last company?
- What are you looking for in your next role?
- Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker.
- Tell me about a time in which you had a conflict and needed to influence somebody else.
- What project are you currently working on?
- What is the most challenging aspect of your current project?
- What was the most difficult bug that you fixed in the past 6 months?
- How do you tackle challenges? Name a difficult challenge you faced while working on a project, how you overcame it, and what you learned.
- What are you excited about?
- What frustrates you?
- Imagine it is your first day here at the company. What do you want to work on? What features would you improve on?
- What are the most interesting projects you have worked on and how might they be relevant to this company's environment?
- Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with your manager.
- Talk about a project you are most passionate about, or one where you did your best work.
- What does your best day of work look like?
- What is something that you had to push for in your previous projects?
- What is the most constructive feedback you have received in your career?
- What is something you had to persevere at for multiple months?
- Tell me about a time you met a tight deadline.
- If this were your first annual review with our company, what would I be telling you right now?
- Time management has become a necessary factor in productivity. Give an example of a time-management skill you've learned and applied at work.
- Tell me about a problem you've had getting along with a work associate.
- What aspects of your work are most often criticized?
- How have you handled criticism of your work?
- What strengths do you think are most important for _your job position_?
- What words would your colleagues use to describe you?
- What would you hope to achieve in the first six months after being hired?
- Tell me why you will be a good fit for the position.

## Airbnb

While loving to travel or appreciating Airbnb's growth may be good answers, try to demonstrate the deep connection you have with the product.

- What does "belong anywhere" mean to you?
- What large problems in the world would you solve today?
- Why do you like Airbnb?
- If you had an unlimited budget and you could buy one gift for one person, what would you buy and who would you buy it for?
- If you had an unlimited budget and you could go somewhere, where would you go?
- Share one of your trips with us.
- What is the most challenging project in or out of school that you have worked on in the last 6 months.
- What is something that you don't want from your last internship/job?
- Give me an example of when you've been a good host.
- What's something you'd like to remove from the Airbnb experience?
- What is something new that you can teach your interviewer in a few minutes?
- Tell me about why you want to work here.
- What is the best gift you have ever given or received?
- Tell me about a time you were uncomfortable and how you dealt with it.
- Explain a project that you worked on recently.
- What do you think of Airbnb?
- Tell me something about yourself and why you'd be a good fit for the position.
- Name a situation where you were impressed by a company's customer service.
- How did you work with senior management on large projects as well as multiple internal teams?
- Tell me about a time you had to give someone terrible news.
- If you were a gerbil, which gerbil would you be?
- What excites you about the company?
- How does Airbnb impact our guests and hosts?
- What part of our mission resonates the most with you?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Airbnb-Interview-Questions-E391850.htm)

## Amazon

- How do you deal with a failed deadline?
- Why do you want to work for Amazon?
- Tell me about a situation where you had a conflict with a teammate.
- In your professional experience have you worked on something without getting approval from your manager?
- Tell me a situation where you would have done something differently from what you actually did.
- What is the most exceedingly bad misstep you've made at any point?
- Describe what Human Resources means to you.
- How would you improve Amazon's website?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Amazon-Interview-Questions-E6036.htm)

## ByteDance

- What do you know about <role> and why?
- Take me through a product you launched from start to end
- What's the biggest achievement in your previous projects?
- Tell me about a recent failure and what you learned from the experience
- Why do you want to work at ByteDance?
- What makes you a good fit for this position?
- What excites you about the role?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.sg/Interview/ByteDance-Interview-Questions-E1624196.htm)

## Dropbox

- Talk about your favorite project.
- If you were hired here what would you do?
- State an experience about how you solved a technical problem. Be specific about the diagnosis and process.

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Dropbox-Interview-Questions-E415350.htm)

## Hired

- Tell me about yourself.
- What is your biggest strength and area of growth?
- Why are you interested in this opportunity?
- What are your salary expectations?
- Why are you looking to leave your current company?
- Tell me about a time your work responsibilities got a little overwhelming. What did you do?
- Give me an example of a time when you had a difference of opinion with a team member. How did you handle that?
- Tell me about a challenge you faced recently in your role. How did you tackle it? What was the outcome?
- Where do you want to be in five years?
- Tell me about a time you needed information from someone who wasn't responsive. What did you do?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://hired.com/blog/candidates/10-top-interview-questions-how-to-answer/)

## Lyft

- Tell me about your most interesting/challenging project to date.
- Why Lyft? What are you looking for in the next role?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Lyft-Interview-Questions-E700614.htm)

## Palantir

- **What is something 90% of people disagree with you about?**
- **What is broken around you?**
- How do you deal with difficult coworkers? Think about specific instances where you resolved conflicts.
- How did you win over the difficult employees?
- Tell me about an analytical problem that you have worked on in the past.
- What are your three strengths and three weaknesses?
- If you were in charge of picking projects for Palantir, what problem would you try to solve?
- What are some of the best and worst things about your current company?
- What would your manager say about you?
- Describe Palantir to your grandmother.
- Teach me something you've learned.
- Tell me a time when you predicted something.
- If your supervisors were to rate you on a scale of 1-10, what would they rate you?
- What was the most fun thing you did recently?
- Tell me the story of how you became who you are today and what made you apply to Palantir.

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Palantir-Technologies-Interview-Questions-E236375.htm)

## Slack

- Tell me something about your internship.
- Why do you want to join Slack?
- Tell me about your past projects.
- Explain me your toughest project and the working architecture.
- Apart from technical knowledge, what did you learn during your internship?
- If someone has a different viewpoint to do a project like different programming language, how would handle this situation?
- What are your most interesting subjects and why?
- Did you find any bugs in Slack?
- What is your favorite feature and why?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Slack-Interview-Questions-E950758.htm)

## Stack Overflow

- What have you built?
- What is the hardest technical problem you have run into?
  - How did you solve it?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Why do you want to work here?
- How do you handle disagreements with co-workers?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://hired.com/blog/candidates/10-top-interview-questions-how-to-answer/)

## Stripe

- How do you stay up to date with the latest technologies?
- Explain a project that you worked on recently that was difficult.
- Where do you see yourself in five years?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Stripe-Interview-Questions-E671932.htm)

## Twitter

- What would your previous boss say your biggest strength was?

Source: [Glassdoor](https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Twitter-Interview-Questions-E100569.htm)