"Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker on a software project. This could be a disagreement about technical direction, code quality, ownership, or execution. Walk me through what happened, how you handled it, and what the outcome was."
At Meta, engineers work across team boundaries and often need to resolve tension quickly without slowing down delivery. Interviewers ask this to understand whether you can handle disagreement directly and constructively, especially when there is no clear authority deciding the answer for you. They are looking for emotional maturity, clear communication, and the ability to protect both the working relationship and the business outcome.
A strong answer shows a real conflict with meaningful stakes — for example, a disagreement affecting an Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, or internal engineering surface launch — not a minor personality mismatch. It should make clear what your role was, what actions you personally took to understand the other person, how you moved toward resolution, and what changed as a result.
Use a specific STAR example. The best answers are concrete, balanced, and outcome-oriented: they show you did not avoid the conflict, did not make it personal, and did not just escalate immediately. Include measurable impact and one lesson you carried forward.