Cross-functional Collaboration

Your team doesn't operate in a vacuum. You're part of a larger whole, and as engineering manager, you represent the group. You'll spend more time meeting with product, design, and other engineering teams as a manager than as an IC, so communication skills become more critical and communication issues become more nuanced.

What to expect

You'll be asked indirect cross-functional communication questions throughout your interview, for example "How do you balance feature requests with engineering workload?" This might seem like a purely prioritization or execution question, but it's not. Who's making the request? And who will need to be told "no" if you don't have the resources available? Most probably, someone from another team.

During the on-site interview, you may be interviewed by a cross-functional peer who's interested in how you'll work with them if you're hired. This interviewer's questions may be more focused, such as "Tell me about a time when you disagreed with a product management decision."

What they're looking for

Cross-functional communication is hard. Engineering managers make technical decisions, which they often need to explain or justify to relative outsiders. Interviewers are looking for this unique ability to "speak two languages." Besides miscommunication, there's risk for conflict across functions. Disagreements are frequent, and while they can be amazing opportunities for collaboration and innovation, they can also devolve. Interviewers want open-minded EMs who are able to understand other viewpoints and quickly assess what those viewpoints mean for their team and the business at large. They also want EMs who are willing to push back if there's strong reason for disagreement - but who will ultimately follow a group decision.

Let's explore this in more depth.

Communication in all directions

Engineering managers work with product management, design, support, marketing, and sales. As an EM, you'll also translate engineering work to higher-ups. All of these groups require slightly different communication. To showcase your ability to get your message across and to take in and evaluate varied inputs, you'll want to:

• Talk about highly-collaborative projects where you worked with two or more other groups.
• Discuss cases in which you changed your mind based on a cross-functional peer's argument — or cases where you changed their mind.
• Explain your process for "translating" engineering concepts in a formal setting. How did cross-functional presentations go? How did you field questions and follow-ups?

At smaller companies, you may be asked to speak on behalf of engineering to an even wider audience, and perhaps more often to upper management. If interviewing at such companies, you may want to spend more time on productive dialogs you've had with management and how they went.

Judgment

As an EM, you'll receive requests all the time. You'll decide whether your team has bandwidth, and if so, commit to timelines. It's important that you showcase your ability to gather all necessary information required to make decisions, and not over-commit your team. During an interview:

• Explain the key pieces of information you need in order to make a go/no-go decision.
• Explain your thought process for weighing business value versus engineering effort.
• Talk through a time where you received a vague request, and how you handled it.

Conflict resolution

Occasionally, you may disagree with peers on direction. In the best case, you're able to come up with a new solution were everyone wins. This isn't always possible, though. Interviewers want EMs who can make sound, logical decisions, and defend them if necessary. Persuasion is an important management skill, as is respectfully declining requests which are simply not possible. Demonstrate logic, careful consideration, tact (as well as backbone!) and you're sure to do well. Here are some ways to do that:

• Focus on the business. When answering a question about a time you turned down a request, be sure to showcase why you did it based on business goals and resources.
• Talk up your creative problem-solving skills. Can you think of a time you were able to come up with a new, better solution?
• Show your ability to respectfully (and appropriately) disagree. Think through an example. Explain how you came to understand your peer, your argument, and what ultimately happened.

Practice real interview questions

Before you move on, here are a few more example questions and exercises to try out that have been asked in recent EM interviews. Take a moment to answer these on your own, or record yourself giving example answers:

• What sort of feedback would you get from a cross-functional peer? Strengths, areas for development, etc.?
• Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way.
• Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
• Tell me about a time when you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone’s opinion.
• Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.

After you've tried these out yourself, continue to the next lesson to see some example answers and our recommended approach for questions like these.