The client's engineering lead strongly disagrees with your recommended approach in front of their executives. How do you handle that moment and afterwards?

What the interviewer is looking for

• This question tests influence & stakeholder management. Handles disagreement respectfully, builds consensus across technical and business leaders, and stays credible under challenge.
• What to bring out: Stays calm, acknowledges valid points, refocuses on shared goals and evidence, avoids a public fight, follows up one to one, and adapts if they are right.
• Expect a follow-up like: Tell me about a time you changed your recommendation because someone pushed back.

Another way it may be asked: During a big presentation, the customer's technical lead says your plan is wrong. What do you do?

A structure to follow: STAR, with the weight on Action and Result

1. Step 1

   Situation

   One or two sentences: where, when and what was at stake. Pick a real example you were close to.

2. Step 2

   Task

   What you personally were responsible for. Say "I", not only "we", so the influence & stakeholder management you showed is visible.

3. Step 3

   Action

   The two or three things you did and why you chose them over the alternatives. This should be about half your answer.

4. Step 4

   Result

   What changed, in your own measure of it, and what you would do differently. Only use numbers you can stand behind.

This is guidance on shape, not a script. Use your own real experience and facts; never invent details to fill a gap. See the STAR guide and answer frameworks.

Common slips

• Describing what the team did without saying what you did.
• Choosing an example with no clear outcome, or one you cannot answer detailed questions about.
• Ending on the action and skipping the result and what you learned.

How to practise it

Write two bullet points for each STAR letter, then say the answer aloud in about two minutes.

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