Tell me about a time you mentored or coached an engineer to improve their skills. What improvements did you see?

What the interviewer is looking for: The interviewer wants to know that you can develop engineering talent. They want to hear how you identify growth areas, provide effective guidance, and drive tangible improvements.

Example response:

"When I joined Acme Co, I inherited an engineer who was struggling with our core app architecture. I noticed he had difficulty designing new features that aligned to our patterns and principles. To help him improve, I scheduled regular 1:1s to review designs together before he started coding. When I saw issues, I would walk through alternatives instead of just pointing them out.

After a few sessions, his proposals improved dramatically. I also suggested online courses and PR reviews with other engineers to expose him to more examples. Over 2-3 months, he made huge progress. Where he required heavy oversight initially, he soon was able to handle complex features independently. His teammates also noticed his growth in our technical design reviews."