Interview prep

Engineering Manager interview questions

13 questions engineering managers get asked, grouped by type. Under each one are the skills it is really testing, so you can pick a story from your own work that shows them.

Technical

  1. How do you stay close enough to the technical work to guide direction without doing the team's job for them?
    Tests: technical judgment, people management
  2. How do you set and hold a consistent hiring bar across interviewers on your team?
    Tests: hiring, process design
  3. How do you design an on-call rotation that catches production issues without burning out the team?
    Tests: reliability, people management
  4. How do you handle a team that consistently underestimates how long work will take?
    Tests: planning, process design

Situational

  1. Two stakeholders both want your team's full attention on different projects at the same time. How do you handle it?
    Tests: prioritisation, stakeholder management
  2. An engineer on your team is missing deadlines and their work needs heavy rework. How do you approach it?
    Tests: people management, communication
  3. How do you run a postmortem after a production incident so the team learns from it without becoming defensive?
    Tests: reliability, communication
  4. Leadership moves up a launch date and your team can't finish everything planned. How do you handle it with the team and with leadership?
    Tests: prioritisation, communication

Behavioral

  1. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker and how you handled it.
    Tests: conflict resolution, communication
  2. Describe a project or task that did not go well and what you did about it.
    Tests: ownership, reflection
  3. Give an example of persuading someone to adopt an idea they initially resisted.
    Tests: influence, communication
  4. Walk me through how you decided what to work on when you had more requests than time.
    Tests: prioritisation, judgment
  5. Tell me about a time you had to learn something new quickly to get a job done.
    Tests: learning agility, ownership
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Engineering Manager interview questions — Gurus Consulting