What are the top 3 things your manager dislikes about you?
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What is this question about
This question tests whether you have honest self-awareness, whether you can talk about your shortcomings without becoming defensive, and whether you convert feedback into changed behavior. Interviewers are usually less interested in the specific flaws than in whether your answer sounds real, proportionate, and followed by concrete adaptation. It also reveals how coachable you are and whether your relationship with your manager is grounded in trust and feedback rather than avoidance.
Key Insights
- You do not need to present yourself as flawless. A credible answer usually includes real, non-fatal weaknesses that matter enough to be believable but are not disqualifying for the role.
- You should not make your manager the villain. Strong answers show that you understood the concern behind the feedback, even if the exact wording or delivery was imperfect.
- Because the question asks for dislikes, honesty itself is part of the evaluation. The best answers name patterns, explain how you learned about them, and show sustained behavior change rather than a one-time patch.
What interviewers probe atlevel
Top Priority
At junior level, interviewers mainly want to see that you can name real developmental gaps without collapsing into defensiveness or trying to game the question.
Good examples
🟢Early on, my manager was frustrated that I would stay quiet when I was blocked for too long and try to solve everything alone. That slowed me down more than it should have.
🟢One thing my manager called out was that my updates were sometimes too optimistic. I would say something was almost done when there were still open questions.
Bad examples
🔴My manager probably dislikes that I care too much and work too hard. I hold myself to really high standards, so sometimes I'm too committed.
🔴Honestly, there isn't much my manager dislikes about me. If anything, maybe I ask too many good questions because I want to understand everything.
Weak answers dodge the premise or disguise strengths as flaws; strong answers name a real, recognizable behavior that a manager could plausibly dislike and that a junior engineer could realistically improve.
Valuable
Example answers atlevel
Great answers
Three things my manager has called out are that I used to wait too long before asking for help, my status updates were sometimes more confident than the situation justified, and I could get too focused on finishing my own task instead of surfacing risks early. The biggest one was the first. I thought struggling through a problem alone showed ownership, but my manager explained that hidden blockers were much harder on the team than asking a clear question early. After that, I started sending a short update if I was blocked for more than half a day and bringing one specific question when I asked for help. Over the next couple of sprints, my work became more predictable, and in a later check-in my manager said my communication had improved a lot.
My manager would probably say I can be a little too quiet in group settings, I sometimes over-prepare simple updates, and I tend to say yes before fully checking my bandwidth. I come from a customer-support background, so I’m comfortable being helpful one-on-one, but in team meetings I used to assume other people had more important things to say and I’d hold back. My manager encouraged me to speak up earlier, even if my point was small, and that’s made a big difference because the team now gets my perspective sooner instead of after the fact. The over-preparing is tied to wanting to be accurate, but I’ve learned that for routine work a clear, timely answer is often better than a perfect one that comes late. The last one is something I’m still working on: I’m getting better at pausing before I agree to a new task and checking what has to move if I take it on.
Poor answers
I don't think my manager really dislikes much about me. If I had to pick three things, it's probably that I care too much about doing things right, I ask a lot of questions, and I can be hard on myself when work isn't perfect. Those are mostly good problems to have. My manager has mentioned communication before, but that was mainly because he likes a lot of updates. Overall we've worked well together.
Question Timeline
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Late November, 2025
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