# Project deadlines and targets constantly slipping: interview question Aced (formerly Exponent) publishes a public search API over its indexed pages; the guide is at https://www.aced.io/agents/agent-access. Source: https://www.aced.io/questions/4914/handle-project-deadlines-targets Source observed: 2026-11-05T01:11:24.171Z Last checked: 2026-11-05T01:11:24.171+00:00 Indexed: 2026-11-07T03:14:28.095+00:00 --- # Project deadlines and targets constantly slipping We provide interview preparation through Aced (formerly Exponent), including interview questions, interview experiences, courses, and AI practice. This page contains a behavioral interview question for candidates who need to explain how they would respond when project deadlines and targets repeatedly slip. ## Question > You're working on a project where deadlines and targets are constantly slipping. How would you handle this? The question is tagged **Behavioral** and is associated with these roles: - [Product Manager](https://www.aced.io/questions?role=pm) — 2 - [Engineering Manager](https://www.aced.io/questions?role=em) - [Technical Program Manager](https://www.aced.io/questions?role=tpm) It is associated with these companies: - [Apple](https://www.aced.io/questions?company=apple) — 2 - [Google](https://www.aced.io/questions?company=google) — 2 The page records **4 interviews** and says it was **reported last asked: 7 months ago**. Detailed company statistics require an upgrade: [Upgrade](https://www.aced.io/upgrade?src=questions). ## Interview experiences Two shared interview experiences are available: ### Apple — Engineering Manager [Read the Apple engineering manager interview experience](https://www.aced.io/experiences/apple-engineering-manager-interview-4e34b3) The candidate said the process took about three months, from an initial screen in late November or early December through mid-March. Apple included two substantive screens before the onsite; the engineering screen was essentially an in-depth system-design round. The onsite rounds were closely tied to the observability-team role, including storage migration, host cost, and working across a matrix organization. A cross-organization partnership round involved a cost-management stakeholder, and a code-review round became live coding from scratch. After the loop, the candidate waited about four weeks and was told Apple was still interviewing other candidates. ### Apple — Technical Program Manager [Read the Apple technical program manager interview experience](https://www.aced.io/experiences/apple-technical-program-manager-interview-09dba9) The candidate entered Apple through an internal referral and interviewed for two EPM roles, completing the full process only for Siri. The Siri process took about two months, from late January through late March. It began with recruiter emails rather than a recruiter call, followed by a short hiring-manager conversation, a six-person loop of 30-minute interviews, and two additional director conversations. The candidate described the process as relatively casual, with many behavioral and project-walkthrough questions, substantial time for candidate questions, and almost no technical grilling. The candidate passed the interviews but was still negotiating because the level and compensation were lower than expected. ## Community answers No community answers have been contributed yet. To submit an answer, [log in](https://www.aced.io/login?src=nav) or [sign up](https://www.aced.io/signup?src=nav&returnPath=/questions/4914/handle-project-deadlines-targets). Submitting an answer marks the question complete. ## Related questions - [Your engineers are not ready to pick up outstanding tickets. How would you handle this?](https://www.aced.io/questions/4786/situational-engineer-ticket-delay) - [How do you handle conflicting priorities and tight deadlines?](https://www.aced.io/questions/4999/handle-conflicting-priorities-tight-deadlines) ## Related courses ### [Engineering Management Interview Prep](https://www.aced.io/courses/engineering-management) Land an engineering-manager role at Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Stripe, and other top companies. The course includes mock interviews, frameworks, and advice from senior candidates, covering system design, people management, project retrospectives, behavioral interviews, and more. ![Engineering Management Interview Prep](https://images.ctfassets.net/x78yjrjc11pq/5AqarwlCDWmr0W7AbMJFwp/16862dab13471f5eb8728b27eb2fbc07/engineering_management_track_compressed_bbabaec4a6__281_29_9a9687c1fb.jpeg?w=800&h=800&fm=webp&q=75) ### [System Design Interviews](https://www.aced.io/courses/system-design-interviews) Learn to answer current system-design questions across product, infrastructure, and AI domains through in-depth video examples, written breakdowns, reference patterns, and mock-interview videos featuring senior engineers and managers. ![System Design Interviews](https://images.ctfassets.net/x78yjrjc11pq/78x7miFZFjBCrM5GqftrMJ/2f6d26e632c4e7265c49f6a180227edb/system_design_track_compressed_26ac98a46e__281_29_5be2280f31.jpeg?w=800&h=800&fm=webp&q=75) ## Practice with AI Use [Practice with AI](https://www.aced.io/practice/ai/new?type=Behavioral&question=handle-project-deadlines-targets&src=questions) to practice this behavioral question. ## Aced interview-preparation offerings We offer preparation for Product Management, Forward Deployed Engineering, Engineering Management, Software Engineering, System Design, Data Science, Machine Learning, Data Engineering, AI Engineering, Investment Banking, Generative AI, Security Engineering, TPM, Solutions Architecture, UX/Product Design, and BizOps & Strategy. 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