Engineering Manager Interview Questions

Ben G. - "Situation - A time I dealt with conflict while on a team was while I was working at Shopify on physical and digital gift card refund point of sale solutions. The situation was that we were dealing with complex technical constraints including not changing particular UI components behavior to act as they should be intended. On the refund screen, the existing design was using a toggle on the same screen to bring up a modal for gift card selection to either select digital or physical options. Thi"See full answer

LateArriver - "A mature manager. Great conversational answer. I wish more sessions with him"See full answer

Rjj - "https://youtu.be/pHu6N3DTnCY?si=BkkVXZVUVRoE5cnt -> This is one video that I recorded for this question. Please go through and feel free to discuss further here or in the youtube comments"See full answer

Vikas T. - "Too much talk nothing concrete to know about the person that I am interviewing."See full answer

Anna D. - "Situation. Initially, my team consisted of young guys who were hired by team leaders based on hardskills. Previously, the company had just begun the transition from a process-based to a product-based approach. In the process of searching and selecting candidates, the interests of the team and the product owner were not taken into account. The candidate didn't pass a behavioral interview on soft skills. Thus, the team consisted of diverse and talented guys, but not very interested in fast wor"See full answer

Usman B. - "System Components Data Collection Layer Posts with hashtags are asynchronously sent to Kafka topics Each message contains: hashtag, timestamp, userid, postid Multiple Kafka partitions ensure scalability and fault tolerance Processing Layer Apache Flink processes streams in real-time Implements sliding window aggregation (1hr, 24hr, 7d windows) Calculates topic popularity using weighted metrics: Post count User engagement (likes, comments) Unique user"See full answer

Kanwarpreet S. - "Credibility is very important for success of any team. And it is something that takes time to build, but if i am inheriting a team that i did not build, i would spend dedicated time to understand team structure, dynamics and skill levels for every team member. Domain knowledge and experience are other important factors i would learn about each team member. In regular meetings i would introduce the culture of openness and respect where team members feel free to bring in ideas and constructive fee"See full answer

Kshitij A. - "The question is bit vague (I guess deliberately) so I believe firstly we shall ask questions and resolve ambiguity. Some initial questions could be : 1) Is this one time activity or something that should be done on continuous basis. If continuous basis then at what frequency. 2) How much staleness is acceptable in SYSTEM Y data 3) Are there any limitation in SYSTEM Y and is it fair to assume that we would need some kind of transformation to bring data into SYSTEM Y schema. 4) What kind of vol"See full answer

Yogi S. - "Might be good to have also explained how the engineer wasn't aware of th expedition process that you as a PM were able to identify when you spoke to the PM from the team that was providing the API, was it just a simple of case of not having access to information that you were able to help surface ?"See full answer

Amparo L. - "Some coworkers say to me that I'm a hard worker, but some say that I can be a little loud while I'm working, So then when I get that feedback I would say I'm sorry that you felt that way and I will promise I will work on it."See full answer

Faraz A. - "Scoped out problem constraints - how much data to download, how many computers, and how much time, how you can be detected (decentralized load). Designed a web crawler."See full answer

Nicholas S. - "First thing the interviewee did wrong is not asking clarifying questions. This is the most vague problem I have every heard, and the interviewee just made assumptions and started programming."See full answer

Aymen D. - "It would have been more interesting to focus on the system design rather than the Trie DS, Interviewee could have just mentioned the Trie and passed to things more important. Interviewee should have focused on the factors on which he wants to scale the API servers, popularity of the query parts ? region may be ? A hash of many factors ? Caches should have definitely be discussed, Cache eviction policies, Cache invalidation managements... Interviewee should have mentioned which kind of API pro"See full answer

Imju B. - "Wondering what is the difference between OKR based and Roadmap based. I feel it is based on the time horizon."See full answer

Dheeraj D. - "Thanks Hozefa for your insights on this. I see that hozefa talks about giving used cases. It would be very helpful if there was an example provided with STAR framework."See full answer

gdecuri - "Load Balancer, Multiple API Servers, game Service, pub-sub system, HTTP Long Polling for status updates, write-through cache. No SQL DB to store user, game, and move information."See full answer

Sam T. - "demonstrate your ability to recognize and nurture talent, provide growth opportunities, and create an environment that supports and challenges high-performing individuals. Use a real-life example to illustrate your approach and showcase your leadership skills. Managing high performers is an exciting and rewarding aspect of being an engineering manager. These individuals are often the driving force behind innovation, productivity, and success within a team. As a manager, it's crucial to recogni"See full answer

James W. - "I've recently worked closely with a product that had both the best and worst performing teams. The situation is that one team is struggling to deliver within a reasonable timeframe, a few stronger members of the team are carrying the weaker. Work is taking a long time. They aren't listening to each other. They aren't helping each other to get work over the line. They are getting stuck down rabbit holes. They aren't continually improving their processes. They are getting frustrated and at risk o"See full answer