What was the biggest development team you have managed and what was the biggest challenge you faced?
An interviewer will ask about the size of the teams you manage to better understand the scope of control you are comfortable with. They want to make sure that you will be able to manage or lead their teams. The role of a senior software engineer does not imply management responsibility. However, at the very least, you'll be acting as a team lead and expected to give direction, mentoring, and task supervision to junior software engineers.
"While I've never actually managed a software development team, I was a team lead for a group of eight software engineers assigned to a specific development project. In this role, I was expected to support the other engineers, answer any questions they may have had, train them in technologies they were unfamiliar with, and ensure that they stayed on task with their assignments. I reported directly to the group manager, who had several teams like mine under their control. The biggest challenged I faced was staying on task with my assignments while assisting the rest of the team. I overcame this by focusing on my tasks early in the day before the other team members were active and encountering issues. I feel very comfortable in this role and can easily see myself formally managing a software development team."
As a senior software engineer, you should anticipate being as this question during an interview. If you haven't directly managed a team, talk about your team leadership experience and the skills you obtained from being a senior member of a software development team. You can also discuss how you have mentored and developed some of the junior members of your team.
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
I managed a development team consisting of 15 developers and QA engineers. One of the biggest challenges I have faced was a junior developer who did not work well with others and frequently tried to do things his way and would not listen to more experienced developers. After hearing complaints from my team, I talked to the problem developer about concerns that he had about the conflicts to try and hear both sides of the story and find a solution that would benefit the entire team. He had problems with the design of the application he was working on, so I let him draw out what his solution would be. While his solution was not optimal, I did not want to call him out on it. Instead, I opted to use the Socratic method of teaching by asking him questions about how the application would respond under various different circumstances and eventually he drew out an application structure that was identical to the initial application design and he came to the understanding that it was the correct route to go. In other instances when that developer would have a disagreement or a different idea, he sometimes had good suggestions and we adopted his suggestions into our development plan. After doing that exercise with him and after adopting some of his good ideas, the developer had a change of attitude and became easier to work with.
Amanda's Feedback
Excellent! This answer really showcases your ability to lead others well, provide constructive criticism, and foster an environment of support, learning, and personal growth. You can make this answer even more well-rounded by sharing the biggest challenge you faced with this team from a technical or development perspective as well. This shows the interviewer that you can handle people's challenges as well as programming or development challenges, making you a resilient and adaptable leader capable of handling anything that comes your way.
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