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The EM Interview Loop

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EM interviews can vary widely depending on company stage and size. That said, most engineering manager candidates go through at least one recruiter screen, a technical screen, and an on-site interview consisting of a panel and multiple interview rounds. Here's a bit more about what each of the stages will look like.

Recruiter screen

Variation A

You came through a referral or an internal transfer, and the recruiter screen won’t be question-heavy. Instead you’ll spend up to 30 minutes learning about the specific role responsibilities, the interview process and have an opportunity to ask questions.

Variation B

You’re completely new to the company, so you’ll have an interview ranging from 30 to 45 minutes including:

  • Behavioral questions to assess your personality and working style.
  • Questions on your resume to understand your experience.
  • Light technical questions to gauge your domain knowledge.

Good questions to ask at this stage are:

  • What’s the format of the interview like? Will I be asked mostly behavioral questions? Will I be expected to go through a technical exercise?
  • Can you please provide the names and any relevant background for my interviewers so that I can prepare?

Some tips on acing the first interview:

  • Do research on the company so that you can display why you’re interested and how you can contribute.
  • If it’s by phone, have all of your prep materials physically laid out in front of you for easy viewing. If it’s by video, it’s better to keep your prep materials on your computer so that you can make eye contact often with the video camera.
  • If you can, look up the interviewer on LinkedIn so you can understand them a bit better; make references during the interview if you have something in common.

Manager screen

Next, you'll get a call from the hiring manager to assess your technical skills and domain knowledge. This is also known as a technical screen. These vary from company to company, but you should be expected to talk through why you're the best candidate for the job and cite lot's of specific examples to support that.

Tip: For more specific information, look for an EM interview guide for the company you’re interviewing with. We publish new guides all the time, so check back frequently, and if you don’t see one, ask the Slack community. Someone’s bound to have been through the loop already.

On-site

On-site interviews also vary, but they follow a predictable structure. Typically you’ll interview for 3-5 hours total with a lunch break midway through.

You’ll go through many rounds, each 30 - 60 minutes long. EMs may be given a technical screen or coding challenge (which likely mirrors the first technical screen, if you've been given one) and complete 1-2 rounds of people management interviews and system design questions. There may be a separate round for a project retrospective.

We encourage you to gather as much information as possible about the exact structure from your recruiter, as well as checking our interview guide collection and asking questions on Slack. Regardless of how your target company structures interviews, we’ve got plenty of practice questions ready.

Some additional tips for the onsite (before and after) are:

  • Imagine what kinds of questions they might ask depending on the company. (e.g. Google might give you a search-based technical exercise).
  • Prepare plenty of questions on the technology, company vision, and management structure. Use the product yourself and be prepared to share your experience. Your dedication and enthusiasm will win points.
  • Email the recruiter after the interview thanking the team for their time.

TIp: If you're preparing for a specific interview, create a study plan. Estimate how much time it will take you to prepare for people management, system design, and project retrospective questions, and block off time appropriately. Of course, nothing beats actual practice, so make sure to sign up for as many mock interviews as you feel comfortable with. We run them every evening at 6:00pm PST.

Some companies do things differently...

Exponent community members and our EM contributors have reported companies doing things a bit unconventionally. For example:

  • Amazon assigns a writing assignment to all external EM candidates. You'll receive a few questions and be asked to write 1-2 pages assessing your ability to make high-quality decisions, lead teams, and of course, build cool things. You'll turn this in a few days before your on-site. Amazon also includes a "bar-raiser" interviewer with unique veto-power in the hiring decision. Check out Exponent's Amazon Software Development Manager (SDM) Interview Guide for the details.
  • Stripe includes a "manager roleplay" round. You'll be asked to simulate handling a conflict or holding a 1:1 with an employee. You'll interact directly with an interviewer playing your employee, and answer questions on common management scenarios while a third interviewer takes notes.
  • Robinhood does a code review round, in which you evaluate rather than write code.

The hire / no-hire decision

Each company weighs skills and competencies differently, but the evaluation process is similar across the board. Hiring decisions occur after the final round — typically the on-site. Either the recruiter or hiring manager will lead a 30-minute meeting with the goal of arriving at a decision. Interviewers take turns sharing their feedback and a recommendation along set spectrum, e.g. Strong No / No / Yes / Strong Yes.

For the most part, these meetings are consensus-driven, but in many companies the hiring manager has slightly more influence. Sometimes the decision is quick. If not, it may come down to which group can convince the other to change their vote. Interviewers may place more emphasis on technical skills or domain-specific knowledge when evaluating an "on-the-fence" candidate, but evaluations typically follow a specific rubric.

Generally, technical skills are weighed less as seniority increases, but this is very company-dependent. Be sure to review the job description thoroughly and reach out to your recruiter with questions about scoring.

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