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Managing Individuals

Premium

A major part of your day as a manager is spent connecting with your engineers—building long-term relationships, guiding personal career growth, and more. Why? Because employee happiness is key to the long-term success of a company.

"Personal growth compounds company growth." - Former Director of Engineering at Stripe

What to expect

Interviews gauge how a candidate will handle day-to-day responsibilities. As an EM, this means building and maintaining a cohesive team that gets the job done. You may be asked broad performance management questions like "What is your philosophy around 1:1s?" and specifics like "Tell me about a time you had to deal with an underperforming employee." As always, these questions are just a starting point. Your best move is to use them to display your familiarity with individual and team dynamics, and your ability to handle performance management challenges.

What they're looking for

A great engineering manager:

  1. has a clear framework for building relationships (1:1s),
  2. supports long-term career growth by helping team members identify areas for improvement, and
  3. ensures that engineers are meeting expectations through regular feedback and performance reviews.

Every company culture is unique, and team structure and dynamics play a big role. Generally, interviewers don't expect your past experience to map directly to what you'll face on the job. However, they are looking for candidates who navigate individual differences in a way that brings people together.

Tip: Does this all sound a bit fuzzy? Your best resources are your target company's mission, values, and organizational structure. Bring your personal anecdotes and style to the interview — but experience that meshes with company culture is key.

Try this: Amazon's culture emphasizes its leadership principles. Take time to read through them, and identify one that meshes well with your leadership style. For instance, if you focus on the "Ownership" principle, bring up examples of how your leadership style encourages and empowers team members.

Let's dive into some areas that are commonly asked about.

Ongoing communication: expectations, objectives, and goals

Whether you've just hired a new engineer or you're taking on a team of 20-year company veterans, it's critical to establish clear communication around expectations, objectives, and goals. A popular way to do this is to hold weekly half-hour long 1:1s with each team member.

1:1s aren't project updates. You have team meetings for that. They're an opportunity for clear, two-way communication that goes beyond tasks. You want to get to know your employees because you're responsible for helping them grow. This goes beyond problem solving. Find out what drives them, what skill gaps they might want to address, and where they want to be in a year. Doing this builds trust and loyalty, and will help you lead effectively if problems come up.

Try this: Create a list of each of your team members' professional interests and learning goals. Then grab a copy of your company's five-year roadmap. Map your team members' interests to company goals, and brainstorm ways to get your team involved. Share your ideas in the next 1:1.

. Demonstrate the following in an interview:

  • You set clear expectations. Describe how you'd set up your first 1:1 with a new employee. A good strategy is to let them know exactly how you'd like to use the time, and what they can do to contribute ahead of time.
  • You value the time and prepare accordingly. Talk about the preparation you do before 1:1s, what you do with feedback you get, and how you follow-up.
  • You let your team members lead the discussion. Give examples of times you received unexpected feedback or learned something critical in a 1:1, and what you did with it.

How to Practice

Try a few of the questions below to test yourself. Take a moment to answer these on your own, or record yourself giving example answers:

  • Tell me about a few people on your team and the career development plans you created with them.
  • What is the structure of your 1:1s?
  • What was some difficult feedback that you received? and why was it hard to receive?
  • Have you ever promoted anyone? Describe the process.
  • How would you describe your role in coaching and career development?

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.

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