Behavioral interview questions
40 Behavioral interview questions with answers, from junior to mid level.
Foundations
- What is a behavioral interview question?
- What does a DevOps engineer mainly work on?
- What is a ticket (or issue) in tools such as Jira?
- What is a stakeholder?
- What is an MVP?
- Which of these is one of the four values of the Agile Manifesto?
- What is Kanban?
- What is a daily stand-up (Daily Scrum)?
- The interviewer asks about something you have not used. How do you answer honestly and well?
Core
- What is the STAR method and how long should an answer be?
- "Tell me about yourself."
- "Tell me about a project you are most proud of."
- "Tell me about a time you had to learn a new technology quickly."
- "Why are you moving into a software engineering role / why this company?"
- What good questions can you ask the interviewer at the end?
- "What are your strengths and weaknesses?"
- "Where do you see yourself in 3 to 5 years?"
- What is Agile software development?
- In Scrum, who are the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers?
- Which Scrum events exist?
- What is a user story and what are acceptance criteria?
- The job asks for 5+ years of Java and you are strongest in another language. How do you answer honestly and positively?
Intermediate
- "Tell me about the most challenging technical problem you solved."
- "Tell me about a time you disagreed with a teammate or manager."
- "Tell me about a time you failed or made a mistake."
- "Tell me about a time you had a tight deadline."
- "Tell me about a time you received critical feedback."
- "Tell me about a time you improved a process or automated something."
- "How do you prioritize when you have several urgent tasks?"
- What are story points and velocity?
- What is a "Definition of Done" (DoD)?
- How does Kanban differ from Scrum?
- What is the purpose of a sprint retrospective?
- How do you explain a technical problem or decision to a non-technical person (written and oral English)?
- Describe how you work in a team and keep a positive attitude under pressure.
- How do you approach an unfamiliar problem analytically (problem-solving)?