Saying no to a senior leader

Tell me about a time a senior leader asked for a feature you believed was wrong. What did you do?

Context

What the interviewer is testing: courage and judgment when pushing back upwards, while staying open to being wrong.

Clarifying questions to ask first

What was their reasoning?
What evidence did you bring?
What would you have done if they insisted?

How to approach it

Pick one real, specific story (not a hypothetical or a summary of many)
Set the scene in two or three sentences, including the stakes
Spend most of the time on what you personally did and why
End with a measurable result and what you learned

Framework: STAR: Situation -> Task -> Action -> Result, with a short reflection at the end

Sample answer

Understood the leader's underlying goal
Offered an alternative that met it
Respectful, data-backed pushback

Situation: specific context, their role, and why it mattered (stakes)
Task: what they personally owned
Action: concrete steps they took, decisions and trade-offs, using "I" not "we"
Result: measurable outcome, plus what they learned or would do differently

Found the goal behind the request, presented evidence and an alternative that served it better, and reached a decision (theirs or the leader's) with a clear outcome.

What interviewers look for

Courage
Stakeholder management
Product judgment