How do you ensure cross-team collaboration in larger projects?
Why This Is Asked
Interviewers want to see that you can coordinate across organizational boundaries. They're looking for practices like clear interfaces, regular syncs, shared ownership, and conflict resolution when teams have competing priorities.
Key Points to Cover
- Defining interfaces and contracts between teams
- Regular communication (standups, syncs, demos)
- Shared goals and accountability
- Escalation paths when alignment breaks down
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
- Give a concrete example of a multi-team project you coordinated
- Show you understand the challenges (ownership gaps, handoff friction, misaligned priorities)
✍️ Example Response
STAR formatSituation: At an e-commerce company, we launched a project that required coordination across four teams: my platform team, the mobile team, the payments team, and the fulfillment team. We had a 12-week timeline. Each team had different priorities, and there was no clear owner for the integration layer. Early on, we had handoff delays and misaligned APIs.
Task: I needed to establish coordination mechanisms so we could deliver as one unit without creating bureaucracy.
Action: I proposed a lightweight structure: a weekly sync with tech leads from each team, a shared doc with API contracts and ownership, and a RACI for integration points. I volunteered to own the integration layer since my team was central. I set up a Slack channel for real-time unblocking. When the mobile team fell behind due to an iOS release, I worked with their lead to de-scope their Phase 1 contribution and documented what would slip to Phase 2. I also ran a kickoff where we aligned on success criteria and escalation paths—so when priorities conflicted, we knew who to involve.
Result: We shipped in 11 weeks. The shared doc and weekly sync became a template for future cross-team projects. We had one escalation to leadership when priorities conflicted—it was resolved in 48 hours. I learned that cross-team work needs explicit ownership, clear interfaces, and a single place for status—informal coordination breaks down at scale.
🏢 Companies Known to Ask This
| Company | Variation / Focus |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Earn Trust, Customer Obsession — "How do you collaborate across teams?" |
| Collaboration, Googleyness | |
| Meta | Cross-functional alignment, impact at scale |
| Microsoft | Collaboration, execution |
| Airbnb | Cross-functional leadership |
| Collaboration |