Tell me about a complicated relationship you had with a coworker

In my first year, I worked closely with a more experienced engineer who reviewed most of my changes, and the relationship felt tense for a while. I felt like their comments were harsher than I expected, but after a couple of rounds I realized I was submitting work with too little context and then getting defensive in review. I asked if we could do a short one-on-one, and in that conversation I learned they had recently dealt with a few production issues caused by unclear changes, so they were being extra careful. After that, I started adding a short summary of what I changed, what I had tested, and where I wanted feedback. Reviews got much smoother, and I became more comfortable asking questions early instead of guessing. We later worked together on another task, and it felt much more collaborative.

On my second rotation I paired with a product designer who loved iterating visually but often pushed new mockups late in the sprint, which left me scrambling to rework code and miss small details. I care about shipping predictable, polished features, so I felt frustrated and started avoiding questions so I wouldn’t slow them down, which made things worse. I asked for a short meeting to explain the impact of late changes and proposed a lightweight process: quick alignment at the start of the week and a short “intent” note on any mockup updates describing what must not change versus what can be tweaked later. They appreciated the clarity, and we also agreed I’d point out the parts that would be costly to change so they could prioritize. After a few sprints the back-and-forth became faster and less stressful, and we ended up enjoying iterating together because we both understood constraints and goals.