How do you give and receive feedback?

Behavioral questions about feedback:

1. Describe a time when you had to give constructive feedback to a teammate or cross-functional partner—such as a PM, data scientist, or designer—because something was not going well.

• What was happening?
• How did you communicate the feedback?
• What came of it?

2. Describe a time when you received critical feedback.

• What was your initial reaction?
• What did you do differently afterward?

Assume the interviewer will probe for specificity, ownership, and impact.

Overview: This question looks at an engineer’s interpersonal skills, especially giving and receiving constructive feedback, showing emotional intelligence, taking responsibility, and working across cross-functional teams.

Solution

What a strong answer looks like

Evaluators typically score feedback stories on clarity, empathy, directness, ownership, follow-through, and measurable outcome.

1) Framework for giving feedback (use a concrete structure)

Use SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) plus a request:

• Situation: the specific time and place—a meeting, sprint, or incident.
• Behavior: what you observed them do, without assuming intent.
• Impact: how it affected users, the team, timeline, or quality.
• Request / next step: what you want to change and how you will help make it happen.

Example phrasing:

• “In yesterday’s on-call handoff (S), you merged the fix without running the regression suite (B). It led to another outage and woke up the APAC on-call (I). Going forward, can we agree to run the 10-minute smoke tests or ask for a second reviewer even when we’re in a hurry? I can help automate those checks (request plus support).”

Choices worth naming:

• Prefer a 1:1 for sensitive feedback; use public settings only for process or system issues.
• Ask questions first (“What constraints were you under?”) so you avoid misreading the situation.
• Align on a shared goal—shipping safely, meeting an SLA, etc.
• End with a clear agreement and a time to check back.

2) Handling disagreement or defensiveness

Demonstrate that you can de-escalate:

• Acknowledge the other person’s feelings: “I see this is frustrating.”
• Bring the discussion back to facts and impact.
• Offer alternatives: pair programming, a written follow-up, bringing in a neutral third party.
• If it is a repeated pattern, describe a thoughtful escalation path—such as manager involvement—with documented examples.

3) Framework for receiving feedback

Use listen → clarify → reflect → act → close the loop:

• Don’t argue right away; ask for examples.
• Confirm what you understood: “What would good look like next time?”
• Pick 1–2 specific behaviors to change.
• Follow up later with evidence that you changed.

Elements to mention in your example:

• You thanked them and asked for specific instances.
• You created an action plan—for example, earlier design doc reviews, weekly stakeholder updates, adding tests.
• You measured improvement—fewer escalations, shorter cycle time, better stakeholder NPS, etc.

4) Mistakes to avoid

• A vague story (“communication issues”) without a clear behavior.
• Blaming the other person; showing no ownership.
• No outcome or learning.
• Feedback delivered as a surprise, with no prior expectations set.

5) How to present your story (STAR)

• S/T: 2–3 sentences, include what was at stake.
• A: emphasize your wording, the channel—ideally 1:1—and how you collaborated.
• R: the outcome plus what you would do differently next time.

If you can share one strong “gave feedback” story and one strong “received feedback” story with measurable outcomes, you will cover most feedback-focused behavioral rounds.