Choose a project where you owned key technical decisions and can clearly articulate the problem, constraints, and outcomes. Structure your answer around the decision points, explicitly comparing alternatives and quantifying trade-offs. Conclude with honest reflections on what you'd change and why, showing growth and self-awareness.
Pro tip: Quantify trade-offs with concrete metrics (e.g., latency, cost, dev velocity) and tie your decisions to business impact—this shows you think like a senior engineer, not just a coder.
Briefly describe the project, your role, and the key constraints (scale, timeline, team size, compliance) that shaped your decisions.
For each major decision (architecture, stack, data store), explain what you chose and what other options you seriously considered.
Discuss the pros and cons of your choice versus alternatives, using specific metrics or scenarios to illustrate the impact.
Describe the results (positive or negative) and what you learned from the experience, including what you'd do differently now.
Relate your experience to the challenges Harvey faces, showing how your decision-making approach would benefit their backend systems.
AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.