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"What's something that you f*'d up on where you thought you might be fired for it?" Most any engineer or developer above a junior level position should have at

"What's something that you f*'d up on where you thought you might be fired for it?" Most any engineer or developer above a junior level position should have at least one of these stories. It also gives you the chance to ask what they learned, how they fixed it, what resources they used, what they did to prevent it in the future, etc, etc, etc. It's also a really humbling moment to have to explain one of your failures and will show you a lot of the person's personality when they're explaining it. The two big negatives I have seen with this question is either someone becoming combative as you ask more questions, or they go full 'used car salesman.' If either of those happen, you can safely run away screaming from the interview. This is a gut/understanding question that is best given/asked by another technical user and has been a solid divining rod for interviews that I've done.

dangwu 7y ago
I’ve never been worried about being fired for something. Not everyone makes huge fireable mistakes.
- SuperTachyon 7y ago
  (Irrelevant question) Does Octal has a url scheme to open a HN from from Safari to Octal?
- sgillen 7y ago
  Can just rephrase the question: "tell me about you've made in your career and how you dealt with it"
- jlangemeier 7y ago
  Well aren't you lucky! And in my experience with this question, there's a big difference between "felt fireable" and "is fireable", which also gives insight. I have my own go-to example that I'll use if they give back your type of answer (which has happened). I messed up packaging a demo version of our software that almost sank a 300k sale (~5% of revenue on the P&L for that year). Was I going to get fired? no Did 23 year old me think I might get fired? yes Essentially it boils down to what's a large mistake you've made while employed (or otherwise) and how did you resolve it.
bradknowles 7y ago
How about the time I broke all internet email for the entire world? See https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/16/who_me/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/16/who_me/

dangwu 7y ago

I’ve never been worried about being fired for something. Not everyone makes huge fireable mistakes.

SuperTachyon 7y ago
(Irrelevant question) Does Octal has a url scheme to open a HN from from Safari to Octal?
sgillen 7y ago
Can just rephrase the question: "tell me about you've made in your career and how you dealt with it"
jlangemeier 7y ago
Well aren't you lucky! And in my experience with this question, there's a big difference between "felt fireable" and "is fireable", which also gives insight. I have my own go-to example that I'll use if they give back your type of answer (which has happened). I messed up packaging a demo version of our software that almost sank a 300k sale (~5% of revenue on the P&L for that year). Was I going to get fired? no Did 23 year old me think I might get fired? yes Essentially it boils down to what's a large mistake you've made while employed (or otherwise) and how did you resolve it.

bradknowles 7y ago

How about the time I broke all internet email for the entire world? See https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/16/who_me/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/16/who_me/