Engineering Manager Interview Questions

Review this list of 140 engineering manager interview questions and answers verified by hiring managers and candidates.
  • Canva logoAsked at Canva 
    Video answer for 'Design a key-value store.'

    "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"

    V V. - "Simple file system ( Hash Map , LSM trees), and consistent hashing. I failed to discuss about conflicts ( Versioning)"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Engineering Manager
    People Management
  • DocuSign logoAsked at DocuSign 

    "During my time as a Product Manager, we were preparing for a major product release with a tight deadline and discovered that implementing both a new feature and crucial performance improvements wasn't feasible within the timeframe. So, I organized a meeting with stakeholders to assess the impact of each option. We analyzed user data, projected ROI, and considered long-term product strategy. Ultimately, I decided to prioritize the performance improvements. As a result, the product launched on tim"

    Vaishnavi T. - "During my time as a Product Manager, we were preparing for a major product release with a tight deadline and discovered that implementing both a new feature and crucial performance improvements wasn't feasible within the timeframe. So, I organized a meeting with stakeholders to assess the impact of each option. We analyzed user data, projected ROI, and considered long-term product strategy. Ultimately, I decided to prioritize the performance improvements. As a result, the product launched on tim"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +1 more
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    +3

    "As an engineering manager, motivation is key to the success of the team. Here are some ways to motivate the team: Set clear goals: Clearly defined goals help team members understand what they're working towards and give them a sense of purpose. Offer growth opportunities: Providing opportunities for professional development and advancement can increase motivation and job satisfaction. Provide recognition and rewards: Recognising and rewarding team members for their hard work and achieve"

    Santhosh K. - "As an engineering manager, motivation is key to the success of the team. Here are some ways to motivate the team: Set clear goals: Clearly defined goals help team members understand what they're working towards and give them a sense of purpose. Offer growth opportunities: Providing opportunities for professional development and advancement can increase motivation and job satisfaction. Provide recognition and rewards: Recognising and rewarding team members for their hard work and achieve"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
  • " Project Overview: Real-Time Risk Management System Objective The goal was to develop a real-time risk management system capable of processing and analyzing large volumes of trading data to provide near-instantaneous risk assessments. This system was crucial for enabling traders to make informed decisions while managing their exposure to various market risks in real-time. Complexity Factors 1. \\Data Volume and Velocity\\ \\High Throughput:\\ The system needed to ha"

    Scott S. - " Project Overview: Real-Time Risk Management System Objective The goal was to develop a real-time risk management system capable of processing and analyzing large volumes of trading data to provide near-instantaneous risk assessments. This system was crucial for enabling traders to make informed decisions while managing their exposure to various market risks in real-time. Complexity Factors 1. \\Data Volume and Velocity\\ \\High Throughput:\\ The system needed to ha"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +1 more
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  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 

    "I will use the following approach for this situation: Understand Current Status of the Program: Program Goals, Schedule, How many teams, what are their deliverables, dependencies between teams Team level view of progress: Through tools like Burn down charts, Gantt charts etc. Identify laggards (lagging teams). Trend analysis for lagging teams: Understand at what point, the decline started. If the decline has started around same time, then following may be the potential issues: -"

    Saket S. - "I will use the following approach for this situation: Understand Current Status of the Program: Program Goals, Schedule, How many teams, what are their deliverables, dependencies between teams Team level view of progress: Through tools like Burn down charts, Gantt charts etc. Identify laggards (lagging teams). Trend analysis for lagging teams: Understand at what point, the decline started. If the decline has started around same time, then following may be the potential issues: -"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Program Sense
    +2 more
  • Discord logoAsked at Discord 
    Video answer for 'What are the most important engineering manager skills?'

    "Engineering Managers (EMs) juggle multiple responsibilities, which can vary significantly depending on the company, team, and organizational needs. One of the most critical skills for an EM is strategic thinking. This includes setting a clear vision for the team, participating in roadmap planning meetings, and crafting actionable roadmaps to guide the team toward its goals. In addition to strategic thinking, an EM must excel in three key areas: People Management: This involves ensuring te"

    Pramod S. - "Engineering Managers (EMs) juggle multiple responsibilities, which can vary significantly depending on the company, team, and organizational needs. One of the most critical skills for an EM is strategic thinking. This includes setting a clear vision for the team, participating in roadmap planning meetings, and crafting actionable roadmaps to guide the team toward its goals. In addition to strategic thinking, an EM must excel in three key areas: People Management: This involves ensuring te"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
  • Amazon logoAsked at Amazon 
    Video answer for 'Design a URL shortener.'
    +19

    "I studied Exponent's TinyURL system design video. My interviewer was asking many detailed questions on API design, schema, as well as data required to store. I found system design questions are bit high level instead of depth. I think should have detail design of API, schema and some additional flavors."

    Yag S. - "I studied Exponent's TinyURL system design video. My interviewer was asking many detailed questions on API design, schema, as well as data required to store. I found system design questions are bit high level instead of depth. I think should have detail design of API, schema and some additional flavors."See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Meta (Facebook) logoAsked at Meta (Facebook) 
    Video answer for 'Design a vending machine.'
    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
  • Discord logoAsked at Discord 

    "My style of inspiring / discovery sessions / brainstorming / execution guidance / upskiling the team has always been Outcome driven. Outcomes always took the central focus of our efforts, and hence easier prioritisation and a clarity on why a decision failed or succeeded. I take personal responsibility to help the teams to define outcomes if it is a complicated charter and for most help them fine tune the outcomes to keep them simple, progressive and aspirational."

    RestlessMonk - "My style of inspiring / discovery sessions / brainstorming / execution guidance / upskiling the team has always been Outcome driven. Outcomes always took the central focus of our efforts, and hence easier prioritisation and a clarity on why a decision failed or succeeded. I take personal responsibility to help the teams to define outcomes if it is a complicated charter and for most help them fine tune the outcomes to keep them simple, progressive and aspirational."See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +2 more
  • OpenAI logoAsked at OpenAI 
    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +5 more
  • Engineering Manager
    System Design
  • Databricks logoAsked at Databricks 
    Video answer for 'What is your leadership style?'
    +7

    "My leadership style is flexible and adaptive, it varies depending on the team members and the needs of the company. My leadership goal is to empower the team and inspire and grow leaders. In order to achieve that, I combine transformational, democratic and coaching leadership styles. Usually when we are facing a new type of challenge, or at the early stage of a project, I like to adapt the transformational leadership which allows me to listen to all the suggestions from the team members and sta"

    onering2ruleall - "My leadership style is flexible and adaptive, it varies depending on the team members and the needs of the company. My leadership goal is to empower the team and inspire and grow leaders. In order to achieve that, I combine transformational, democratic and coaching leadership styles. Usually when we are facing a new type of challenge, or at the early stage of a project, I like to adapt the transformational leadership which allows me to listen to all the suggestions from the team members and sta"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +4 more
  • Meta (Facebook) logoAsked at Meta (Facebook) 

    "The core of this design is to allow millions of users to send comments simultaneously, save them to the database, and broadcast them to all users in real-time during the live session. If you think about it, it is very similar to a streaming service like Kafka. Fault Tolerance with Write-Ahead Log: Kafka's write-ahead log ensures durability and fault tolerance. Every comment is persisted to Kafka's log before being processed, ensuring no data is lost even if a service crashes. Fast I/"

    Abhi M. - "The core of this design is to allow millions of users to send comments simultaneously, save them to the database, and broadcast them to all users in real-time during the live session. If you think about it, it is very similar to a streaming service like Kafka. Fault Tolerance with Write-Ahead Log: Kafka's write-ahead log ensures durability and fault tolerance. Every comment is persisted to Kafka's log before being processed, ensuring no data is lost even if a service crashes. Fast I/"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • Meta (Facebook) logoAsked at Meta (Facebook) 

    "Understand gaps team by interviewing on 1:1, reading past performance reviews and talking to old managers/cross functional Identify Goals and use the SMART framework to set those goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, relevant, time related) Share with team and make sure they understand them. Clarify questions if needed. Explain WHY these goals matter. Tie to company goals/mission/culture. Put together an action plan TOGETHER- give often feedback: "pinches no punches"

    Chantal C. - "Understand gaps team by interviewing on 1:1, reading past performance reviews and talking to old managers/cross functional Identify Goals and use the SMART framework to set those goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, relevant, time related) Share with team and make sure they understand them. Clarify questions if needed. Explain WHY these goals matter. Tie to company goals/mission/culture. Put together an action plan TOGETHER- give often feedback: "pinches no punches"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Program Sense
    +1 more
  • Meta (Facebook) logoAsked at Meta (Facebook) 

    "Yes to peer manager from stackholder team the problem was every time she wanted say something she used to have three way connect with me and my manager"

    Graig - "Yes to peer manager from stackholder team the problem was every time she wanted say something she used to have three way connect with me and my manager"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Behavioral
    +1 more
  • " can we use blomfilters to check existing usernames? and if both are creating at a time, like both are choosing some abcd , here system checks whether user with that name exists or not. so while checking , it will add an entry on redis (example) with this name as key and obtain lock using some distributed lock. , it will lock on that name. (like seat booking in bookmyshow) with some TTL value. so this check will happen once user enters his interest username and also while submit .. 2 times che"

    Gk K. - " can we use blomfilters to check existing usernames? and if both are creating at a time, like both are choosing some abcd , here system checks whether user with that name exists or not. so while checking , it will add an entry on redis (example) with this name as key and obtain lock using some distributed lock. , it will lock on that name. (like seat booking in bookmyshow) with some TTL value. so this check will happen once user enters his interest username and also while submit .. 2 times che"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +2 more
  • "Context: As a people manager, my biggest thing is to foster psychological safety for my team members and the way I do that: building rapport between me and my direct reports, weekly team meetings I ensure all voices are heard, have people share about themselves and encourage them to get to know one another. Team members had a good understanding of each other’s working style. One of the recent projects my team was responsible for building out the espresso test framework on android. This was"

    Shawn S. - "Context: As a people manager, my biggest thing is to foster psychological safety for my team members and the way I do that: building rapport between me and my direct reports, weekly team meetings I ensure all voices are heard, have people share about themselves and encourage them to get to know one another. Team members had a good understanding of each other’s working style. One of the recent projects my team was responsible for building out the espresso test framework on android. This was"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    Execution
    +2 more
  • Zillow logoAsked at Zillow 
    Video answer for 'Design Zillow.'

    "What about sharding by Real Estate companies that are listing the homes? Because the homes can span zip codes. Then further shard by zip codes?"

    Adrian V. - "What about sharding by Real Estate companies that are listing the homes? Because the homes can span zip codes. Then further shard by zip codes?"See full answer

    Engineering Manager
    System Design
    +1 more
Showing 81-100 of 140