Describe a time you had to make a decision without your manager's input

Why interviewers ask this

This checks whether you can operate independently and make sound judgment calls when the person who'd normally weigh in isn't available — a common reality given time zones, PTO, and genuinely time-sensitive situations.

What a strong answer covers

• Why your manager wasn't available or wasn't the right person to loop in fast enough (out of office, a decision below the threshold that needed escalation, genuine time pressure)
• How you reasoned through the decision using whatever context you did have about their priorities and the team's goals
• Whether you looped them in after the fact, and how they reacted to the decision you made
• What this taught you about the boundaries of decisions you're comfortable making solo versus ones you'd wait to escalate next time

Common pitfalls

• A decision so minor it wouldn't have needed manager input anyway, which undersells the actual judgment involved
• No follow-up communication to the manager afterward — silently making a call and never mentioning it is a weaker signal than proactively closing the loop