"Tell me about a time you had to keep an engineering team motivated through a long, difficult project with unclear milestones or repeated setbacks. Ideally, use an example tied to a mission-critical effort — for example, delivering a capability into Lattice or integrating with a complex autonomous system. What made the work hard, how did you keep the team engaged over time, and what was the outcome?"
This question tests whether you can lead through fatigue, ambiguity, and slow progress without relying on charisma alone. For an Engineering Manager at Anduril, long programs often involve cross-functional dependencies, changing requirements, operational pressure, and teams that can lose energy if the mission is not translated into concrete progress. Interviewers want to see whether you can create clarity, maintain standards, and protect team health while still delivering.
They are also looking for signs of ownership: how you diagnosed motivation issues, what mechanisms you put in place, how you handled setbacks, and whether you adapted your leadership style as the project evolved.
A strong answer uses one specific example, explains why morale was at risk, and shows deliberate actions beyond "I encouraged the team." The best responses include measurable outcomes, visible trade-offs, and a lesson about how the candidate now leads long-running efforts differently.