After a break to focus on launching the book, I’m back to coaching 1:1 clients preparing for their behavioral interviews. This was my first full (and very busy) week of coaching, with senior ICs, line managers, and senior managers mostly from big tech preparing for Anthropic and OpenAI loops, plus a few other FAANG+ roles. Here are some field notes.

If you’re a senior+ engineer, PM, or leader preparing for behaviorals, check out more at https://thebehavioral.tech/coaching

For Anthropic specifically, develop an actual moral philosophy. “I try to do the right thing” isn’t sufficient. They’ll ask about moral dilemmas, how AI safety should work, what your guiding values are. Spend real time thinking through ethical frameworks and which ones resonate with you. Go journal by a lake :)

For OpenAI, lean into optimism. They believe AGI will transform society positively. Your “why OpenAI” should be personal and forward-looking. One candidate talked about using AI with their kid for math tutoring and wanting to bring that to the world: good as a personal anecdote, but we upleveled it by adding a broader societal context.

Lead with the headline, then give the details. When I asked one candidate what they were doing to grow their org-wide influence, they started with “I’m engaging more in Slack channels.” That’s the sub-point. The headline is: “I’m deliberately investing time in influencing long-term technical direction across the org.” Then you give the Slack example. Practice saying the takeaway first, then backing it up.

Front-load stakes in the first slide. We were preparing a slide deck for OpenAI’s Project Deep Dive, that requires slides or a document. One candidate had a project that unlocked a billion-dollar customer, but that result was buried on slide 11. We moved it to slide 1. In a real interview, you may never reach a results slide at the end. Open with what the CEO would say about your project.

Scope is felt from the challenges described. The deeper you dig the hole in your setup—how hard the problem was, how many teams were involved, how long the company had avoided it—the more impressive your story is when you get out of the hole.

Signal your level through what you emphasize. Line manager sounds like “I keep my team executing well, I stay technical, I uplevel junior engineers.” Senior manager sounds like “I understand where the business is going, I translate that into multi-year vision, and I build the people and the systems to get there.” You might have the raw material for the second story but keep defaulting to the first. Several candidates this week had that pattern.

Build durable systems, not just relationships. One candidate was handling a difficult cross-team relationship through back-channels and one-on-ones. That’s better than nothing, but the higher-level move is putting a structure in place: aligning with the partner director on how the two orgs will prioritize and resolve conflicts for the next year. Teaching the org to fish (lol) rather than personally smoothing each instance.

Great week, looking forward to next week!

Mastering Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral Coaching Notes: Anthropic…