About this ebook
The Software Engineering Manager Interview Guide is a comprehensive, no-nonsense book about landing an engineering leadership role at a top-tier tech company. You will learn how to master the different kinds of engineering management interview questions. If you only pick up one or two tips from this book, it could make the difference in getting the dream job you want.
This guide contains a collection of 150+ real-life management and behavioral questions I was asked on phone screens and by panels during onsite interviews for engineering management positions at a variety of big-name and top-tier tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, LinkedIn, Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Pinterest, Salesforce, Intuit, Autodesk, et al.
In this book, I discuss my experiences and reflections mainly from the candidate’s perspective. Your experience will vary. The random variables include who will be on your panel, what exactly they will ask, the level of training and mood of the interviewers, their preferences, and biases. While you cannot control any of those variables, you can control how prepared you are, and hopefully, this book will help you in that process.
I will share with you everything I’ve learned while keeping this book short enough to read on a plane ride. I will share tips I picked up along the way.
If you are interviewing this guide will serve you as a playbook to prepare, or if you are hiring give you ideas as to what you might ask an engineering management candidate yourself.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Answering Behavioral Interview Questions
Chapter 2: The Job Interviews
Phone Screens
Prep Call with the Recruiter
Onsite
Company Values
Coding, Algorithms and Data structures
System Design and Architecture Interviews
Generic Design Of A Popular System
A Design Specific To A Domain
Design Of A System Your Team Worked On
Lunch Interview
Managerial and Leadership
Bar Raiser
Unique One-Off Interviews
Chapter 3: Tips To Succeed
How To Get The Interviews
Scheduling and Timelines
Interview Feedback
Mock Interviews
Panelists
First Impressions
Thank You Notes
Ageism
Chapter 4: Example Behavioral and Competency Questions
General Questions
Feedback and Performance Management
Prioritization and Execution
Strategy and Vision
Hiring Talent and Building a Team
Working With Tech Leads, Team Leads and Technology
Dealing With Conflicts
Diversity and Inclusion
Ratings and reviews
About the author
I am on a mission to improve engineering management.
As a product minded software engineering leader, I lead and transform software engineering teams to deliver user-friendly, customer-facing websites and mobile apps. I am skilled in all aspects of software engineering from hands-on coding to management and recruiting. As a leader, I aim for efficiency and developer productivity. I lead by example paying attention to quality of code and software craftsmanship while instilling a sense of total ownership across the team.
