Describe a time you led a project or initiative without formal authority
Reported in Goldman Sachs USA engineering loops. Leadership behavioral question for senior and lead engineering tracks.
Interview scenario
Often asked in Goldman Sachs on-site or virtual loops at US offices (Bay Area, Seattle, NYC, Austin, and remote US). Prepare a clear spoken answer plus key trade-offs.
Model answer
Try answering aloud first
Cover trade-offs, structure, and a concrete example before revealing the baseline response.
How to frame this at Goldman Sachs: Connect your answer to measurable impact, clarity of thought, and trade-offs the team cares about. Below is a strong baseline response you can adapt with your own project examples.
Pick an example where you influenced outcomes across teams—on-call improvement, test coverage drive, or migration—not just individual coding.
Structure: Problem (pain point with metrics—MTTR, flaky builds), Vision (what good looks like), Actions (aligned stakeholders, broke work into milestones, unblocked others, communicated progress), Outcome (MTTR down 30%, adoption by two other squads).
Highlight soft skills: listening, writing RFCs, giving credit, handling resistance. Lead-level answers show sustained impact beyond one sprint and mentorship of others who continued the work.
Avoid "I told people what to do." Emphasize collaboration, psychological safety, and measurable business or reliability impact.
Discussion
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