How can a team reduce merge conflicts?
Keep branches short-lived, pull or rebase from main often, make small focused pull requests, avoid reformatting whole files, and talk when two people touch the same area.
Explain it simply
Conflicts grow with time. Two people working on separate copies for three weeks will collide; working for three hours rarely will.
Practical habits: branch from fresh main, merge or rebase main into your branch daily, and keep pull requests small so they merge quickly. Do not run an auto-formatter over files you are not changing, because it touches every line. Agree on code style with a shared formatter in CI. Split large files into modules so people rarely edit the same one. Tell teammates before a big refactor.
Example
git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main # or: git merge origin/main
# small, frequent integration beats one big merge at the endWhat to say in the interview
"I keep branches short, sync with main often, send small pull requests, and avoid drive-by reformatting. A shared formatter and good communication about big refactors prevent most conflicts."