Describe a time when you realized you made the wrong call and had to reverse course. How did you handle it?
Why This Is Asked
Interviewers want to see that you can admit mistakes and change direction when evidence warrants it. They're assessing your humility, willingness to own the error, and ability to communicate the reversal clearly—without losing credibility or blaming others.
Key Points to Cover
- How you recognized that the decision was wrong (feedback, data, outcomes)
- How you communicated the reversal to stakeholders and the team
- How you owned the mistake and avoided deflecting blame
- What you did to mitigate impact and prevent similar errors
STAR Method Answer Template
Describe the context - what was happening, what team/company, what was at stake
What was your specific responsibility or challenge?
What specific steps did you take? Be detailed about YOUR actions
What was the outcome? Use metrics where possible. What did you learn?
đź’ˇ Tips
- Choose a meaningful reversal—not a trivial tweak
- Emphasize that reversing course quickly is better than doubling down on a bad decision
- Show that you learned from it—what would you do differently next time?
✍️ Example Response
STAR formatSituation: I'd pushed for a monolithic architecture for a new service. I argued it would be faster to ship and we could split later. Six months in, we were struggling—deployments were slow, teams were stepping on each other, and we'd underestimated the coupling. The "split later" was becoming a major project. I had to admit I was wrong.
Task: I needed to reverse the decision, communicate clearly, and get the team aligned on a new direction.
Action: I first validated with the team that the current approach wasn't working—I didn't want to reverse based on my ego. We ran a retrospective and the data was clear: cycle time had doubled, incident rate was up. I owned it in the team meeting: "I made the wrong call. I pushed for the monolith when we should have started with a modular design. I'm sorry for the rework." I presented a new plan: we'd extract the highest-friction modules first, with a 3-month timeline. I communicated to stakeholders: "We're changing direction. Here's why and here's the revised timeline." I didn't blame anyone else. I added a step to my decision process: for architecture decisions, I now require a "devil's advocate" review before we commit.
Result: We completed the modularization in 4 months. The team respected that I'd owned the mistake. I learned that reversing quickly is better than doubling down—and that owning the error preserves trust.
🏢 Companies Known to Ask This
| Company | Variation / Focus |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Learn & Be Curious, Ownership — "Tell me about a time you had to reverse a decision" |
| Growth mindset, navigating ambiguity | |
| Meta | Hard calls, candor |
| Microsoft | Growth mindset, accountability |
| Netflix | Candor, high performance |