Ford VOWs

Question:
“Can you give an example where you took a challenging technical leadership decision and explain your approach and the outcome?”

Interview Bullet-Point Guide (STAR Format):

Situation:

Ford’s legacy Vehicle Ordering WERS system needed migration to modern technologies.
Complex legacy application required strategic technical leadership for transitioning to a microservices architecture.

Task:

Action:

Worked collaboratively with architects and stakeholders to define a clear technical roadmap.
Enhanced Jenkins CI/CD pipelines for seamless deployment.
Developed Spring Boot microservices deployed to Cloud Pivotal.
Initiated regular Friday “brown bag” knowledge-sharing sessions to mentor the team and encourage continuous learning.

Result:

Successfully migrated critical parts of the application, enabling ongoing phased migration.
Positioned the team to autonomously continue migration efforts effectively.
Improved technical capabilities, confidence, and readiness within the team.

Suggested Answer (STAR format):

Situation:
At Ford, we needed to incrementally migrate a critical InternationalDealer Ordering System from a legacy monolith to cloud-native microservices, embracing the new WERS codes system.
Task:
My role as a lead developer was to develop and instill a strategy for the migration, and to mentor the team to deliver the migration.
Action:
I collaborated closely with architects and stakeholders, created a clear technical roadmap, enhanced Jenkins pipelines, and implemented Spring Boot microservices thar were deploted to cloud pivotal. Started Friday brown bag sessions, where the team would impart knowledge to each other, and we would evaluate the success of the migration from a technical perspective.
Result:
The app though not completely migrated from the monolith went into production on time and in a state where around 60% of the functionality is delivered via the new microservices, and the team are now in a position to continue the migration.

Why always me?