Interview Question: Tell me about a time you mentored or coached someone. What was your approach?
Multipliers make everyone around them better. Companies value engineers who elevate their colleagues through teaching, coaching, and mentorship. This signals leadership potential and team-first thinking.
What Interviewers Are Looking For
- Proactiveness: Did you notice someone needed help?
- Coaching Mindset: Did you guide them to answers or just tell them?
- Patience: Can you explain things clearly to beginners?
- Investment: Did you genuinely care about their growth?
What Counts as Mentorship
- Onboarding a new hire or intern
- Helping a junior engineer on a project
- Teaching a colleague new technology
- Helping someone prepare for promotion
A - Action (Your Approach)
- Structured learning plan
- Regular check-ins
- Guided discovery over giving answers
- Pair programming sessions
✓ Strong Answer
"A new junior engineer was struggling with our microservices architecture. I created a 'codebase tour' document and set up weekly 1:1s focused on learning. Instead of giving answers when they got stuck, I'd ask guiding questions. After 3 months, they went from needing help on every PR to mentoring another new hire themselves."